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M. TULLIUS CICERO 



or THE 



NATURE OF THE GODS 



IN THREE BOOKS. 



/ 



PRINTED BY D. A. TAT.BOYS, OXFORD. 



v/ 



M. TULLIUS CICERO 



OF THE 



NATURE OF THE GODS, 

TRANSLATED, 

WITH NOTES CRITICAL, PHILOSOPHICAL, AND 

EXPLANATORY, 



BY THOMAS FRANCKLIN, D.D. 

— x 



TO WHICH IS ADDED 



AN INQUIRY INTO THE ASTRONOMY 



AND 



ANATOMY OF THE ANCIENTS, 



LONDON: 
WILLIAM PICKERING. 

MDCCCXXIX. 



■ ^ 



Q 



PREFACE. 

IN the following books the reader is presented 
with the doctrines of three of the most con- 
siderable sects among the ancients, concerning 
one of the nicest subjects of human inquiry, 
the nature of the divine essence; in which 
three illustrious persons are introduced speak- 
ing each in defence of his own favourite sect. 
The dispute is carried on with a mixture of 
gravity and raillery ; and though all the argu- 
ments on either side will not bear the test of 
unprejudiced reason, yet some of them are 
strong and persuasive ; and even those passages 
(and some such there are) which are almost 
ridiculously weak, are not without their advan- 
tages to the reader ; for the knowledge of many 
ancient Roman customs, of great part of the 
theology and mythology of the ancients, and 
many curious pieces of history, are handed 
down to us, though introduced with a super- 
stitious regard to the traditions and religious 
rites and ceremonies of their ancestors. 

In this work we have no trivial specimen of 
the astronomical and anatomical learning of the 
ancients. 

To say anything in commendation of our 
great author, would be more a proof of my own 
folly than of his extraordinary worth ; for num- 
bers among the unlearned, in all nations where 



ii PREFACE. 

learning has any footing, have heard enough 
of Cicero to be desirous of seeing what such an 
exalted genius can say on any subject. 

As we have in these kingdoms many specu- 
lative persons who are strangers to the learned 
languages, I have, on their account, left no 
passage unexplained, which would otherwise 
remain obscure to them. One design of my 
notes is to guard the mind against superstition, 
and to prepare it for a fair inquiry into truth, 
without any partial attachment to principles 
founded only on education and custom. 

I have consulted all the various readings, 
and chose those which seemed most rational to 
me. I have endeavoured, in my translation, to 
preserve Tully's manner of writing, not depart- 
ing from it even in that particular, which has 
been imputed to him by some as a fault, the 
prolixity of his periods ; for there is generally 
such a pressing occasion for that prolixity, that 
the connection of the argument would be broke 
without it ; and to depart from it would be 
to depart from Cicero's manner of writing. 

As I have in my notes prevented the neces- 
sity of a long preface, I shall no longer detain 
the reader from an entertainment prepared for 
him, near two thousand years ago, by one of 
the greatest of the ancient Romans, a person of 
consular dignity, and the friend of Atticus and 
Brutus. 



CICERO 



ON THE 



NATURE OF THE GODS 



book I. 

AS there are many branches of philosophy not yet 
sufficiently explained, the question concerning the na- 
ture of the gods is, as you very well know, Brutus, 
particularly difficult and obscure ; a subject most wor- 
thy the inquiry of the mind, and necessary towards 
modelling religion; concerning which the opinions of 
the learned are so many, and so different from each 
other, that a strong argument may be advanced 
towards proving, that ignorance a is the cause, or ori- 



tt Some read scientiam, and some inscientiam, the latter of which is pre- 
ferred by some of the best editors and commentators ; and Cicero, in his first 
book de Divinatione, makes ignorance the original of philosophy. I doubt 
not but inscientiam is the right reading, for the reasons which I have al- 
ready given, and because it is better than scientiam. To say that know- 
ledge is the original of philosophy, is the same as to say that philosophy is 
the original of philosophy ; for philosophy consists in knowledge; that is, 
in knowing facts, and how to separate truth from falsehood. It is igno- 
rance, therefore, that incites men (such men as are by nature formed and 
inclined to philosophise) to inquire after those useful truths to which they 
are strangers ; as other wants press men to procure what is necessary for 
them. 

B 



2 OF THE NATURE book i. 

ginal, of philosophy; and that the Academics b are 
prudent in refusing, their assent to things uncertain ; 
for what is more unbecoming a wise man than to judge 
rashly ? or what rashness so unworthy the gravity and 
stability of a philosopher as to conceive wrongly, or to 
defend absolutely, what he has not thoroughly ex- 
amined, and does not clearly comprehend ? 

In this question many have maintained (which is 
most likely, and to which opinion, if we follow nature, 
we are all directed) that there are gods. Protagoras c 
doubted there were any. Diagoras Melius d , and 
Theodorus e of Cyrene, entirely believed there are 
none. 



b The followers of Plato were called Academics, from Academus, who 
had a place of resort in a grove near Athens ; which was, from the possessor 
of it, called the Academy ; and here Plato instructed his disciples in his 
principles of philosophy. 'Amdrjfiia, — ciirb t'ivoq rjpwog bvofiaBiv ' AnaSt- 
fiov. Diog. Laert. in his life of Plato. 

c There were three philosophers of this name ; one, says Diogenes Laer- 
tius, was an astrologer, and one a Stoic. The person whom Cicero here 
speaks of, was neither the astrologer nor Stoic. He begun a treatise with these 
words : Hspl fxtv Qedv ovk £%oj eLSsvai, (.'iff wg elaiv, eW wg ovk tioiv, 7ro\Xtt 
yap ra KwiXvovra sidsvai, i)Ti adrjXoTrjg, icai fipaxvg ojv 6 jSt'oc tov av- 
6pu)7rov. Concerning the gods, I am unable to arrive at any knowledge 
whether there are any or not ; for there are many impediments to our know- 
ledge, the uncertainty, in particular, and the shortness of human life. This 
passage of Protagoras is quoted by Diogenes Laertius; and we are told by 
the same author, that the Athenians banished Protagoras for this beginning 
of his treatise, and burnt his books in the market-place ; from which we see 
that restraint to freedom of debate is not peculiar to Christian countries ; 
but wherever it is, it is equally an offence to truth, and an obstruction to the 
discovery of it. Cicero speaks afterwards of Protagoras being banished, 
and his books burnt. 

d Diagoras is mentioned by Hesychius the Milesian, in his book of 
learned men, as a disciple of Democritus, who bought him from slavery 
because of the genius he discovered in him. He was called the impious, 
says the same author. Democritus who bought Diagoras was not the 
great Democritus the Milesian. 

e Diogenes Laertius, in his life of Aiistippus, says that Theodorus was for 



book r. OF THE GODS. 3 

They who have affirmed that there are gods, have 
such variety of sentiments and such dissensions amongst 
them, that it would be tiresome to enumerate their 
opinions ; for they give us many relations of the forms 
of the gods, of their places of abode, and of the em- 
ployment of their lives. These are the heads on which 
philosophers chiefly differ. But the most considerable 
part of the dispute is, whether they are wholly inactive; 
that is, quite indolent, and free from all care and admi- 
nistration of affairs ; or, on the contrary, whether all 
things were made and constituted by them from the 
beginning ; and whether they will continue to be actu- 
ated and governed by them to eternity. Here is the 
great point in debate ; and unless this be decided, man- 
kind must necessarily remain in the greatest of errors, 
and ignorant of what is most important to be known. 

Some philosophers, both ancient and modern, con- 
ceived that the gods take not the least cognizance of 
human affairs. If their doctrine is true, of what avail 
is piety, sanctity, or religion ? for these are pure and 
chaste offices of devotion to the divinity of the gods, 
admitting the gods take notice of them, and that man- 
kind receives any benefit from the immortal beings. 
But if the gods neither can nor will help us; if they 
take no care of us, nor regard our actions ; and if man- 
kind can receive no advantage from them ; why do we 
pay any adoration, any honours, or prefer any prayers 
to them f ? Piety, like the other virtues, cannot consist in 



eradicating all the notions of gods. The reader must observe that they 
were not only notions of a multiplicity of gods, which are here to be under- 
stood, but of Deity itself. 

f Cicero exerts more of the orator in this passage than the philosopher. 
This is only declaiming, not reasoning, against the Epicureans. If they 

B 2 



4 OF THE NATURE book i. 

dissimulation: and without piety, neither sanctity nor 
religion ean be supported ; the destruction of which 
must be attended with great confusion and a life of 
trouble ; and I do not know g , if we cast off piety 
towards the gods, but that faith h , society, and that 
most excellent of all virtues, justice, may be likewise 
destroyed. 

There are other philosophers, and those truly great 
and illustrious, who conceive the whole world to be 
directed and governed by the will and wisdom of the 
gods ; nor do they stop here, but conceive likewise that 
the deities consult and provide for the preservation of 
mankind. They think that the fruits, and other pro- 
duce of the earth, the seasons, the variety of weather, 
and the change of climates, by which all the produc- 



were persuaded that mankind received advantage by prayers, or any offer- 
ings to the gods, they would not have endeavoured to explode those offices. 
Therefore our great author is here more lavish of his eloquence than the ar- 
gument requires. The Epicureans were very irrational in their principles 
of creation ; but they were not the only persons who thought prayer and 
sacrifices unnecessary and absurd ; for many wise and good men in all ages 
were, and some now are, of the same opinion. Thanksgivings, indeed, 
for the benefits we received of his providence in this system of creation, are 
necessary ; they are indications of a grateful mind, and preserve a purity of 
manners in us, by keeping the Deity, who is all perfection, in our minds. 

£ Faith, society, justice, (which are almost synonymous,) and all human 
virtues, are immutable, abstracted from any consideration of a Deity. Cicero 
therefore very well says, haud scio, for no man that thinks rightly of moral 
truths, will say that justice would be destroyed, even if there was no such 
being as God. Yet, so depraved are most men, I do not know, as Tully 
says, whether the majority of mankind would pay any regard to justice, if 
they were not awed by some penalty. But, however the weaker part of 
mankind may be influenced by hopes and fears of futurity, right and wrong 
exist in the nature of things, and are immutable ; as the earl of Shaftesbury 
beautifully endeavours to demonstrate to mankind through his writings. 

h The reader must observe, that by Jides, which I here translate^/a///i, 
Cicero means that confidence or trust which one man reposes in another. 



book r. OF THE GODS. 5 

tions of the earth are brought to maturity, are designed 
by the immortal gods for the use of man. They 
instance many other things, which shall be related in 
these books ; and which are of such a nature, that they 
seem calculated by the divine beings for our benefit. 

Against these opinions Carneades 1 has advanced 
so much, that what he has said should excite a 
desire in men, who are not naturally slothful, to search 
after truth ; for there is nothing in which the learned, 
as well as the unlearned, differ so strenuously as in 
this; and since their opinions are so various, and so 
repugnant one to another, it is possible that none of 
them may be right, and absolutely impossible that 
more than one should. In this case I may be able to 
pacify well-meaning opposers, and to confute invidious 
censurers ; that the latter may repent of their unrea- 
sonable contradiction, and the former be glad to learn ; 
for they who object as friends are to be instructed ; 
they who pursue as enemies are to be repelled. I 
observe that the several books which I have lately pub- 
lished k have occasioned much noise, and various dis- 
course about them ; some being surprised that I should 
turn myself so suddenly to the study of philosophy, 
and others desirous of knowing what I can discover on 
such subjects. I likewise perceive that many wonder 



* Diogenes Laertius tells us, that Carneades, who was of Cyrene, left 
nothing behind him but some epistles to Ariarathes king of Cappadocia ; 
what else were in his name, he says, were wrote by his scholars. Diogenes 
gives him an extraordinary character, and says he was well read in the 
writings of the Stoics. Tully mentions him afterwards as a reviver, or 
rather assertor, of the Academic manner of disputing. 

k Tully wrote his philosophical works in the last three years of his life. 
When he wrote this piece he was in the sixty-third year of his age, in the 
year of Rome 709. 



6 OF THE NATURE book i. 

at my fixing on that philosophy ' chiefly, which seems 
to extinguish, or cloud things in a sort of night ; and 
that I should so unexpectedly patronise a discipline 
that has been long neglected and forsaken. 

But I did not suddenly enter on this study. I have 
applied myself to it from my youth, at no small ex- 
pense of time and trouble ; and I then philosophised 
most, when I least seemed to think about it ; of which 
my orations are instances, containing sentences of phi- 
losophers; and my conversation with the learned, who 
remarkably frequented our house; particularly Dio- 
dorus, Philo, Antiochus, and Posidonius m , under whom 
I was bred ; and, if all the precepts of our philosophy 
are to have reference to the conduct of life, I am in- 
clined to think that what I have advanced, both in 
public and private affairs, may be supported by reason 
and authority. If any one should ask what induced 
me, in the decline of life, to write on these subjects, 
there is nothing I can so easily answer; for, being 
entirely disengaged from business, and the common- 
wealth reduced to the necessity of being governed by 
the direction and care of one man 11 , 1 thought it neces- 
sary, for the sake of the public, to instruct our coun- 
trymen in philosophy: and that it would be of import- 
ance, and much to the honour and commendation of 
our city, to have such great and excellent subjects in- 
troduced in the Latin tongue. I the less repent of my 

1 The Academic. Our author soon answers these objections, as he does 
the rumours, which he here mentions, concerning his writings. 

m Diodorus and Posidonius were Stoics ; Philo and Antiochus were Aca- 
demics; but the latter afterwards inclined to the doctrine of the Stoics. 

n Julius Caesar, whose usurpation, after the defeat of Pompey, seems 
never to have been absent from Cicero's mind. This is not the oDly work 
in which he mentions it ; he speaks very feelingly of it in his Orhces. 



book r. OF THE GODS. 7 

undertaking, since I plainly see that I have excited in 
many a desire not only of learning but of writing ; for 
we had several Romans well grounded in the learning 
of the Greeks, who were unable to communicate to 
their countrymen what they had learned, because they 
looked upon it as impossible to have that expressed in 
Latin which they had received in Greek. In this 
point I think I have succeeded so well, that what I 
have done is not, even in copiousness of expression, 
inferior to that language. Another inducement to it 
was a melancholy disposition of mind °, and the great 
and heavy oppression of fortune that was upon me ; 
for which, if I could have found any surer remedy, I 
would not have sought a refuge chiefly in this, I could 
procure ease by no means better than by not only 
applying myself to books, but by exploring the whole 
body of philosophy. Every part and branch of it is 
readily discovered, when every question is propounded 
in writing ; for there is such an admirable continuation 
and series of things, whose dependencies hang one on 
another, that they seem all connected and linked toge- 
ther. They who desire to know what I think on every 
particular head, have more curiosity than is necessary. 
The force of reason in disputation is rather to be 
sought after than authority ; for the authority of the 
teacher is often a disadvantage to those who are willing 
to learn; as they refuse to use their own judgment, 
and rely implicitly on him they make choice of for a 
preceptor. Nor could I ever approye this custom of 



To the usurpation of Julius C.-esar, and the change of fortune, Cicero 
adds the death of his wife Tullia as an occasion of grief in him, which he 
complains of in his Academical Questions. 



8 OF THE NATURE book i. 

the Pythagoreans, who, when they affirmed anything 
in disputation, and were asked why it is so, used to 
give this answer, ' he himself has said it ;' and in this 
ease ' he himself was Pythagoras. Such was the pre- 
judice of opinion, that authority served instead of 
reason. 

They who wonder at my being a follower of this sect p 
in particular, may find a satisfactory answer in my four 
books of Academical Questions ; and that I have not 
undertaken the protection of what is neglected and for- 
saken ; for the opinions of men do not die with them, 
but may perhaps want the author's explanation. As 
this manner of philosophising, of disputing all things 
and affirming nothing certainly, was begun by Socrates, 
revived by Arcesilaus, and confirmed by Carneades, so 
it hath come in its full force to our present age ; but I 
am informed that it is now almost exploded even in 
Greece. However, I do not impute that to any fault 
in the institution of the Academy, but to the negligence 
of mankind. If it be difficult to know all the doctrines 
of any one sect, how much more is it to know those of 
every sect q ; which it must necessarily be to those who 
solve, for the sake of discovering truth, to dispute for 
or against all philosophers without partiality? I do 
not profess myself master of this difficult and noble 
faculty, but I value myself for pursuing it; and it is 
impossible that they, who choose this manner of phi- 
losophising, should meet nothing worthy their pursuit. 
I have spoken more fully on this head in another 



p The Academic. 

i Cicero says this in commendation of the method of the Academics, who 
in their disputations opposed one doctrine to another, to see which would 
best bear examination. 



book i. OF THE GODS. 9 

place 1- . But as some are too slow of apprehension, 
and some too heedless, they want frequently to be 
cautioned ; therefore I assure them we do not as- 
sert that nothing has the appearance of truth; but 
we say that some falsehoods are so blended with all 
truths s , and have so great a resemblance to them, that 
there is no certain rule of judging and assenting; on 
which is founded this tenet, that many things are prob- 
able, which, though they are not evident, have so 
persuasive and beautiful an aspect that a wise man 
chooses to direct his conduct by them. 

Now, to free myself from the reproach of partiality, 
I will publish the sentiments of philosophers concern- 
ing the nature of the gods, by which means all men 
may judge which of them are consistent with truth; 
and if all agree upon, or any one shall be found to have 
discovered what is, truth, I will look upon the Academy 
as arrogant. So I may cry out, in the words of the 
poet* in his Twins ; 



r In his Academical Questions, which are mutilated in many places. 
But though they are not perfect, yet he has said a great deal on the method 
of the Academics, which is still remaining in those books. 

8 If our great author had said multis, instead of omnibus veris, he had 
been right ; but all truths are not blended with falsehoods. The relations 
in which we stand to one another, as constituted into any particular society, 
or as rational creatures, and all moral truths, are as certain as arithmetical 
truths ; and, if nothing but arithmetical truths were certain, it is wrong to 
assert that all truths are blended with falsehoods. 

1 In most editions, Statius is here named (ut Statins in Synephebis-'). 
Some read ut Plautus, and some ut Terentius. But neither Plautus nor 
Terence wrote a comedy with that title; though the Menaechmi of Plautus 
would admit of it. Dr. Davis rejects the poet's name in the text, on the 
authority of the best manuscript copies. There are passages in Plautus 
and Terence similar to this exclamation; but Cicero certainly quoted it 
from Caecilius Statius, who wrote a comedy with that title, which is now 
lost. 



10 OF THE NATURE jbook i. 

Ye gods, I call upon, require, pray, beseech, entreat, and implore 
the attention of my countrymen all, both young and old ; 

yet not on so trifling an occasion, as when the person 
in the play complains that, 

In this city we have discovered a most flagrant iniquity ; here is a 
professed courtesan who refuses money from her gallant; 

but that they may attend, know, and consider what 
sentiments they ought to preserve concerning reli- 
gion, piety, sanctity, ceremonies, faith, oaths, temples, 
shrines, and solemn sacrifices; and what concerning 
the auspices over which I preside ; for all these have 
relation to the present question. The manifest dis- 
agreement amongst the most learned on this subject 
creates doubts in those who imagine they have some- 
thing of certainty ; which, as I have often taken notice 
of elsewhere, so I did more especially at the careful 
and accurate dispute that was held at my friend 
C Cotta's, concerning the immortal gods ; for coming 
to him at the time of the Latin festivals", according to 
his own invitation and message from him, I found him 
sitting in his study x , and in a discourse with C. Vel- 
leius the senator, who was then reputed by the Epi- 
cureans the ablest of our countrymen. Q. Lucilius 
Balbus was likewise there, a great proficient in the 
doctrine of the Stoics, and esteemed equal to the most 
eminent of the Greeks in that part of knowledge. As 
soon as Cotta saw me, you are come, says he, very sea- 
sonably ; for I have a dispute with Velleius on an im- 

u The Feriae Latinae were celebrated on the last of March, on the hill 
Albanus, where the Latins then offered sacrifices to Jupiter of Latium ; for 
which reason they were called Feria; Latinae. 

* Exhedra, the word here used by Cicero, means a study, or place wheie 
disputes were held. 



book i. OF THE GODS. li 

portant subject, which, considering the nature of your 
studies, is not improper for you to join in. Indeed, 
says I, I think I am come very seasonably, as you say ; 
for here are three chiefs of three principal sects met 
together. If M. Piso y was present, no sect of philo- 
sophy that is in any esteem would want an advocate. 
If Antiochus's book, replies Cotta, which he lately sent 
to Balbus, says true, you have no occasion to wish for 
your friend Piso ; for Antiochus is of the opinion, that 
the Stoics do not differ from the Peripatetics in fact, 
though they do in words. I should be glad to know 
what you think of that book, Balbus ? I ? says he. 
I wonder that Antiochus, a man of the clearest appre- 
hension, should not see what a vast difference there is 
between the Stoics 2 , who distinguish the honest and 
the profitable, not only in name but absolutely in kind ; 
and the Peripatetics, who blend the honest with the 
profitable in such a manner, that they differ only in 
degrees and proportion, and not in kind. This is not 
a little difference in words, but a great one in things : 
but of this hereafter. Now, if you think fit, let us re- 

y M. Piso was a Peripatetic. The four great sects were the Stoics, the 
Peripatetics, the Academics, and the Epicureans. 

z However Cicero makes Balbus represent the distinction which the 
Stoics made between the honest and the profitable, virtue was always 
esteemed by them the only good ; according to which the honest and the 
profitable are inseparable. Cicero says, in the third book of his Offices, 
quod summum bonum a Stoicis dicitur, convenienter naturae, vivere, id habet 
banc, ut opinor, sententiam, cum virtute congruere semper. What the Stoics 
call the chief good, which is to live agreeably to nature, has, I think, this 
meaning in it, to act always consistent with virtue ; and this passage of 
Cicero is almost a translation from Zeno's treatise on the Nature of Man; 
the original of which is preserved in Diogenes Laertius. Tully, in the same 
book of his Offices, says the Stoics make honestum the solum bonum, and that 
the Peripatetics make it the summum bonum ; which difference is more in 
words than in fact. 



12 OF THE NATURE book i. 

turn to what we began with. With all my heart, says 
Cotta. But that this visiter, (looking at me,) who is 
just come in, may not be ignorant of what we are upon, 
I will inform him that we were discoursing on the na- 
ture of the gods ; concerning which, as it is a subject 
that always appeared very obscure to me, I prevailed 
on Velleius to give us the sentiments of Epicurus. 
Therefore, continues he, if it is not troublesome, Vel- 
leius, repeat what you before delivered. I will, says 
he ; though this person will be no advocate for me, but 
for you ; for you have both, adds he with a smile, 
learned from the same Philo to be certain of nothing'*. 
What we have learned from him, replied I, Cotta will 
discover ; but I would not have you think I am come 
as an assistant to him, but as an auditor, with an im- 
partial and unbiassed mind, and under no necessity to 
defend any particular principle. 

After this Velleius, with the confidence peculiar to 
his sect, dreading nothing so much as to seem to doubt 
of anything, began as if he had just then descended 
from the council of the gods, and Epicurus's intervals b 
of worlds. Attend, says he, to no idle and invented 
tales ; not to the operator and builder of the world, the 
god of Plato's Timaeus; nor to the old prophetic dame, 
the Ilpwoia, of the Stoics, which the Latins call Provi- 



a It was a prevailing tenet of the Academics, that- there is no certain 
knowledge. Academic! novam induxerunt scientiaiii, nihil scire, says Seneca 
in one of his epistles. The Academics have introduced a new science, to 
know nothing. Novam scientiam, nihil scire, is not bad ridicule. 

b The Epicureans maintained the doctrine of plurality of worlds with va- 
cant spaces, intervals, between them. There is no doctrine more consistent 
with reason than this, when we consider the infinity of space, the immense 
quantity of matter in space, and the power of God. There is scarcely any- 
thing more absurd than to imagine that there should be but one world. 



BOOK I. 



OF THE GODS. 13 



dence ; nor to that round, that burning, voluble deity, 
the world, endowed with sense and understanding ; 
the prodigies and wonders, not of inquisitive philoso- 
phers, but of dreamers ! For with what eyes of the 
mind was your Plato able to see that workhouse of such 
stupendous toil, in which he makes the world to be 
modelled and built by God? What materials, what 
tools, what bars, what machines, what servants, were 
employed in so vast a work ? How could the air, fire, 
water, and earth, pay obedience and submit to the will 
of the architect ? From whence arose those five forms d , 
of which the rest were composed, so aptly contributing 
to frame the mind, and produce the senses ? It is te- 
dious to go through all, as they are of such a sort, that 
they look more like things to be desired, than to be 
discovered. But what is most remarkable, he gives us 
a world not only made, but in a manner formed with 
hands, and yet says it is eternal. Do you conceive him 
to have the least skill in natural philosophy who is 
capable of thinking anything to be everlasting that had 
a beginning? For what is there in the composition that 
is not dissoluble ? or what is there that had a begin- 
ning which will not have an end ? 



c This opinion of the world being endowed with understanding was ad- 
vanced both by Plato and the Stoics. 

d The five forms of Plato are whimsies unbecoming a philosopher. They 
are these, oixria, tclvtov, srepov, ard<ng, Kivr]<ng. The general interpre- 
tation of which is ; ovaia, the principal essence ; tccvtov, the same, re- 
garding the relation it bears to itself and other things ; srspov, the other, 
when one thing varies or differs from another ; ardmg, while it keeps its 
station, or preserves a unity ; Kivrjaig, motion, or that by which it exerts a 
power to act. Platonic trifles ! A farther explanation of this unphilosophical 
stuff would not in the least illustrate this passage of our author; and here- 
after, where Cicero does not leave those doctrines of the several sects difficult 
to be understood, I shall not give the reader or myself the trouble of a note. 



14 OF THE NATURE book i. 

If your Providence, Lucilius, is the same as Plato's 
God ; I ask you, as before, what were the assistants, 
the engines ? what the plan and preparation of the 
whole work ? If it is not the same, why did she make 
the world mortal, and not everlasting, like Plato's 
God? Now I would demand of you both, why these 
world-builders started up so suddenly, and lay dormant 
so many ages ? for we are not to conclude, that if there 
was no world, there were no ages. I do not now speak 
of such ages as are finished by a certain number of 
days and nights in annual courses ; for I acknowledge 
that those could not be without the revolution of the 
world; but there was a certain eternity from infinite 
time, not measured by any circumscription of seasons ; 
but how that was in space 6 we cannot understand; be- 
cause we can have no idea of time before time was. I 
desire, therefore, to know, Balbus, why your Provi- 
dence was idle for such an immense space of time? 
Did she avoid labour ? but that could have no effect 
on the Deity ; nor could there be any labour ; since all 
nature, air, fire, earth, and water, would obey the Di- 
vine Essence. What was it that incited the Deity to 
act the part of an aedile f , to illuminate and decorate 



e Velleius is here to be understood as speaking of infinite space, un- 
occupied by any worlds, and without any divisions of time, as appears by 
what follows. 

' There were two sediles in Rome, who were always persons of distinc- 
tion ; one was a patrician, though at first they were both chose out of the 
commons. Their office was to take care of the temples and other public 
buildings ; from whence they were called aediles. They had likewise the 
direction of public entertainments, shows, decorations, etc. Velleius, the 
reader must observe, attacks the other sects with an air of ridicule ; and 
his raillery is sometimes, though not always, just. Velleius afterwards de- 
claims against the doctrines of several philosophers, without proving any- 
thing. 



book i. OF THE GODS. 15 

the world ? If it was because God might be the better 
accommodated in his habitation, why did he dwell such 
an infinite length of time before in darkness, as in a 
dungeon ? Do we imagine that he could afterwards be 
delighted with that variety with which we see the 
heaven and earth adorned? What entertainment could 
that be to the Deity? If it was any, he would not have 
been without it so long ; or were these things made, as 
you almost assert, by God, for the sake of men? Was 
it for the wise ? If so, this great design was for very 
few. Or for the sake of fools ? First, there was no 
reason that he should consult the advantage of the 
wicked 8 ; and farther, what could he propose, since all 
fools are, without doubt, the most miserable, chiefly 
because they are fools? for can we name anything 
more deplorable than folly? Besides, there are so 
many inconveniencies in life which the wise can soften 
by their consideration of the advantages they receive ; 
but fools are unable to avoid them when they are 
coming, nor can they bear them when they are come. 
They who affirm the world to be an animated and in- 
telligent being, have by no means discovered the na- 
ture of the mind, nor are atyle to conceive in what form 
that essence can exist ; but of that I shall speak more 
hereafter. At present, I must express my surprise at 
the weakness of those who will not only have it to be 
animated and immortal, but likewise happy and round, 
because Plato says that is the most beautiful form; 
whereas I think a cylinder, a square, a cone, or a py- 
ramid, more beautiful. But what life do they attribute 

8 Fools and the wicked are synonymous in philosophic language. To be 
guilty of wickedness is to act against reason ; and to act against reason is 
folly. 



16 OF THE NATURE book i. 

to that round deity ? Truly it is a being whirled about 
with a celerity that imagination cannot reach ; nor can 
I conceive how a settled mind and happy life can con- 
sist in such motion, the least degree of which would be 
troublesome to us. Why, therefore, is it not so to the 
Deity? The earth, as it is part of the world, is part of 
the Deity. We see vast tracts of land uninhabitable and 
barren ; some, because they are scorched by the too 
near approach of the sun; others, because they are 
bound up with frost and snow, through the great dis- 
tance of it. Therefore, if the world is a Deity, as these 
are parts of the world, some of the Deity's limbs may 
be said to be scorched, and some frozen. These are 
your doctrines, Lucilius ; what those of others are I 
will search from the earliest 11 of ancient philosophers. 



*' The words in the original are, qualia vero alia ab ultimo repetum supe- 
riorum ; and our author begins immediately with Thales the Milesian ; 
from which it is plain that, by ab ultimo superiorum, Cicero means ab aiiti- 
quorum philosophorum vetustissimo, from the most ancient of ancient philoso- 
phers, or the earliest ; and in this sense Dr. Davis and other good critics 
take it; in the same sense Cicero uses this adjective towards the beginning 
of his first book de Divinatione : his words are these, Principio Assyrii, ut 
ab ultimis auctoritatem repetam ; naming the Assyrians, that I may produce, 
says he, the oldest authority. I have not been so nice on this adjective for 
the sake of explaining this passage in Tully, but to show that the general 
construction of the word ultima in the following verse of Virgil is wrong ; 

Ultima Cumrei venit jam carminis aetas; 

the common explanation of which is, that the last age foretold by the Cu- 
msean sibyl is now come. This is said to be prophetic of the birth of Christ ; 
though it is evident that Virgil applied it to the birth of Pollio's son, as a 
compliment to his friend and patron. But if such a sibylline prophecy was 
fulfilled in Christ, yet these words of Virgil will admit of no such construc- 
tion ; ultima is used here for vetustissima, as tiltimo and ultimis are used 
by Cicero for vetustissimo and vetustissimis ; then the sense of the verse is 
this, the oldest age (that is, the most remote from us) mentioned by the 
Cumaean poet, Hesiod, is come again ; and the next two verses in this 
eclogue of Virgil explain the foregoing verse. Let us read them together : 



BOOK I. 



OF THE GODS. 17 



Thales the Milesian, who first inquired after such 
subjects, asserted water to be the origin of things; and 
that God was that mind which formed all things from 
water. If the gods can exist without corporeal sense 1 , 
and if there can be a mind without a body, why did he 
annex a mind to water? 

It was Anaximander's opinion that the gods were 
born ; that after a great length of time they died ; and 
that they are innumerable worlds k . But what con- 
ception can we have of a Deity not eternal ? 

Anaximenes, after him, taught that the air is God ; 
that he was generated ; and that he is immense, in- 
finite, and always in motion ; but could air, which hath 
no form, be God ? for the Deity must necessarily be 



Ultima Cumtzi venit jam carminis aetas, 
Magnus ab integro secloium nascitur ordo ; 
Jam redit et virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna. 

The oldest age, mentioned by the Cumaean poet, is come again ; the great 
order, or round of ages, arises anew; the virgin, Justice, returns again, and 
the Saturnian age revives. All this is agreeable to the first age described 
by Hesiod, which is the Saturnian age; and in the same sense Virgil uses 
the word ultimus in the seventh book of his ^Eneis, verse 48. 



•isque parentem 



Te, Saturne, refert; tu sanguinis ultimus auctor. 

You, Saturn, he reports his father, you the oldest author of his blood. I 
am not peculiar in applying this passage of Virgil to the first or oldest age, 
mentioned by Hesiod ; many learned men have done the same, as may be 
seen in Fabricius's Bibliotheca Graeca, and in other books. But I believe 
I have as justly settled the sense here as it has been in any other place. 

1 The general reading of this passage is nonsense. I follow Lambinus in 
my construction. 

k The common, and T doubt not but the right, reading is, eosque innume- 
rabiles esse mundos. Some copies have not the word mundos ; but it ap- 
pears, as Dr. Davis observes, from Cyril against Julian, and from other au- 
thors, that Anaximander thought the Deity to be contained in infinite 
worlds. 



18 OF THE NATURE book i. 

not only of some form, but the most beautiful ; besides, 
is not everything that had a beginning subject to mor- 
tality ? 

Anaxagoras, who received his learning from Anaxi- 
menes, was the first 1 who affirmed the system and dis- 
position of all things to be contrived and perfected by 
the power and reason of an infinite mind ; in which in- 
finity he did not perceive that there could be no con- 
junction of sense and motion, nor any sense in the least 
degree where Nature herself could feel no impulse. 
If he would have this mind to be a sort of animal, there 
must be some more internal principle from whence that 
animal should receive its appellation. But what can 
be more internal than the mind ? Therefore it is 
clothed with an external body. But this is not agree- 
able to his doctrine; and we are unable to conceive 
how a naked pure mind can exist without any sub- 
stance annexed to it. 

Alcmaeo of Croton, in attributing a divinity to the 
sun, the moon, and the rest of the stars, and also to 
the mind, did not perceive that he ascribed immortality 
to mortal beings. Pythagoras, who supposed the Deity 
to be one soul, mixing with and pervading all nature, 
from which our souls are taken, did not consider that 
the Deity himself must be maimed and torn with the 

1 Why the first? as Dr. Davis says. Thales is but just before said to 
have asserted that God was that mind which formed all things from water. 
Lescaloperius, as the same critic observes, thinks Anaxagoras was the first 
who published anything on that subject ; but that will not reconcile it. 
Augustine, in his de Civitate Dei, says that Thales committed his disputa- 
tions to writing. Dr. Davis endeavours to clear it up, by making this dis- 
tinction between the God of Thales and the God of Anaxagoras; the first is 
without motion, as Stobaeus, Plutarch, and Cyril against Justin, represent 
him; but Anaxagoras's God is, according to Lactantius, an infinite mind, 
to which motion is essential. 



book i. OF THE GODS. 19 

rending every human soul from it ; nor that, when the 
human mind is afflicted, (as it often is) part of the Deity 
must likewise be afflicted, which cannot be. If the 
human mind was a Deity, how could it be ignorant of 
anything. Besides, how could that Deity, if it is 
nothing but soul, be mixed with, or infused into, the 
world. 

Xenophanes, who would have all parts of the uni- 
verse to be infinite and possessed of a mind, and who 
said that was God, is as liable to exception as the rest, 
especially in relation to the infinity of it, in which there 
can be no sensible conjunction. 

Parmenides formed a conceit to himself of something 
circular like a crown. He names it Stephane m . It is 
an orb of constant light and heat around the heavens ; 
this he calls God, in which there is no room to imagine 
any divine form or sense. Many more are his absur- 
dities ; for he ascribed a divinity n to war, to discord, 
to lust, and other passions of the same kind ; which 
diseases, sleep, oblivion, or age, destroy. The same 
honour he gives to the stars ; but I shall here forbear 
making any objections to that point, having already 
done it in another place. 

Empedocles, who erred in many things, is most 
grossly mistaken in his notion of the gods. He lays 
down four ° natures as divine, from which he thinks all 

m Plutarch mentions the crTScpdva, or circle, of Parmenides. 

n None of the commentators tell us from whence Cicero had these opi- 
nions of Parmenides. Neither Diogenes Laertius nor other authors, who 
have preserved the fragments of ancient philosophers, mention them ; but 
we read in Plato's Banquet that Parmenides, like Hesiod, deified war, 
discord, etc. 

" The four natures here to be understood are the four elements, fire, 
water, air, and earth ; which are mentioned as the four principles of Empe- 
docles by Diogenes Laertius. 

c2 



20 OF THE NATURE book i. 

things were made. Yet it is evident that they have a 
beginning, that they decay, and that they are void of 
all sense. 

Protagoras did not seem to have any idea of the 
gods; for he acknowledged that he was altogether 
ignorant whether there are or are not any, or what 
they are. 

What shall I say of Democritus, who ranges our 
images of objects 15 , and their orbs, in the number of the 
gods, as he does that principle through which those 
images appear and have their influence? He deifies 
likewise our knowledge and understanding. Is he not 
involved in a very great error ? And because nothing 
continues always in the same state, he denies that any- 
thing is everlasting; does he not thereby entirely de- 
stroy the Deity, and make it impossible to form any 
opinion of him ? 

Diogenes of Apollonia looks upon the air to be a 
Deity? what sense can that have? or what divine form 
can be attributed to it? 

It would be tedious to show the uncertainty of 
Plato's opinion, who, in his Timaeus, denies the pro- 
priety of asserting a Father of this world ; and in his 
Book of Laws, he thinks we ought not to make too strict 
an inquiry into the nature of the Deity. He will have 
God to be without any body, what the Greeks call 
ao-co(Aa,To<, incorporeal ; a being to us inconceivable : for 
he must then necessarily be destitute of sense, pru- 
dence, and pleasure; which are all comprehended in 
our notion of the gods. He likewise asserts, in his 

p The word imagines means the forms in which all objects appear to us, 
and not the solid bodies themselves. They are images or representations 
flowing from bodies, simulacra ex corporibus effiuentia. 



book i. OF THE GODS. 21 

Timasus, and in his Laws, that the world, the heavens, 
the stars, the earth, the mind, and those gods which are 
delivered down to us from our ancestors, constitute the 
Deity. These opinions, taken separately, are appa- 
rently false ; and, together, are directly repugnant to 
each other. 

Xenophon has committed almost the same mistakes, 
but in fewer words. In those sayings which he has 
related of Socrates, he introduces him disputing the 
lawfulness of inquiring into the form of the Deity; and 
makes him assert the sun and the mind to be deities ; 
he makes him likewise affirm the being of one God 
only, then of many, which are errors of almost the 
same kind I before took notice of in Plato. 

Antisthenes, in his book called the Naturalist, says 
there are many national, and one natural Deity ; but 
by this he destroys the power and nature of the gods. 

Speusippus is not much less in the wrong ; who, 
following his uncle Plato, says that a certain incorpo- 
real power governs everything; by which he endea- 
vours to root out of our minds the knowledge of the 
gods. 

Aristotle, in his third book of philosophy, confounds 
many things together, as the rest have done ; not dif- 
fering q from his master Plato. One while he attri- 
butes all divinity to the mind, another while he asserts 
the world to be God. Soon after he makes some 
other essence preside over the world, and gives him 
those offices, by which, with certain revolutions, he 

1 Some read a magistro Platone uno dissentiens, some non dissentiens. As 
Dr. Davis observes, the concordance of Aristotle's doctrines here mentioned 
with Plato's, determines the reading in favour of non dissentiens ; and Vel- 
leius makes him guilty of the same contradictions with Plato. 



22 OF THE NATURE book i. 

may govern and preserve the motion of it. Then he 
asserts the heat of the firmament to be God ; not per- 
ceiving the firmament to be part of the world, which in 
another place he had described as God. How can that 
divine sense of the firmament be preserved in so rapid 
a motion ? And where do the multitude of gods in- 
habit, if heaven itself is a Deity ? When this philo- 
sopher says that God is without a body, he makes him 
an irrational and insensible being. Besides, how can 
the world move itself if it wants a body? or how, 
if it is in perpetual self-motion, can it be easy and 
happy ? 

Xenocrates his fellow-pupil does not appear much 
wiser on this head ; for in his books concerning the 
Nature of the Gods, no divine form is described ; but he 
says, the number of them is eight. Five are moving 
planets r , the sixth is contained in all the fixed stars ; 
which, dispersed, are so many several members ; but, 
considered together, are one single Deity. The seventh 
is the sun, and the eighth the moon. In what sense 
they can possibly be happy, .is not easy to be un- 
derstood. 

From the same school of Plato, Heraclides of Pontus 
stuffed his books with puerile tales. Sometimes he 
thinks the world a Deity, at other times the mind. He 
gives divinity likewise to the wandering stars. He 
deprives the Deity of sense, and makes his form 
mutable ; and, in the same book, he makes earth and 
heaven deities. 

The unsteadiness of Theophrastus is as intolerable. 
Now he attributes a divine prerogative to the mind ; 

r These five moving stars are Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, and Vei. 
Their revolutions are considered in the next book. 



book i. OF THE GODS. 23 

now to the firmament ; then to the stars and celestial 
signs. 

His disciple Strato, who is called the naturalist, is 
not more to be regarded ; for he thinks that the divine 
power is diffused through nature, which is the cause of 
birth, increase, and diminution, but that it hath no 
sense nor form. 

Zeno (to come to your sect, Balbus,) thinks the law 
of nature to be the Divinity ; and that it hath the 
power to enforce us to what is right, and to restrain us 
from what is wrong. How this law can be an animated 
being I cannot conceive, but that God is so we would 
certainly maintain. The same person says, in another 
place, that the sky is God ; but can we possibly con- 
ceive that God is a being insensible; deaf to our 
prayers, our wishes, and our vows ? In other books he 
thinks there is a certain rational essence, pervading all 
nature, endued with divine efficacy. He attributes 
the same power to the stars, to the years, to the 
months, and to the seasons. In his interpretation of 
Hesiod's Theogony s , he entirely destroys the esta- 
blished notions of the gods; for he excludes Jupiter, 
Juno, and Vesta, and those esteemed divine, from the 
number of them ; but his doctrine is, that these are 
names which, by a sort of allusion, are given to mute 
and inanimate beings. 

The sentiments of his disciple Aristo are not less 
erroneous. He thought it impossible to conceive the 
form of the Deity. He says the gods are without 
sense ; and he is entirely dubious whether the Deity is 
an animated being or not. 

* Or, Generation of the Gods. 



24 OF THE NATURE book i. 

Cleanthes, who next comes under my notice, a dis- 
ciple of Zeno with Aristo, one while says the world is 
God, at other times he attributes divinity to the mind 
and spirit of universal nature ; then he asserts, that the 
most remote, the highest, the all-surrounding, the all- 
enclosing, and embracing heat, which is called the sky, 
is most certainly the Deity. In the books he wrote 
against pleasure, in which he seems to be doating, he 
imagines the gods to have a certain form and shape; 
then he ascribes all divinity to the stars ; and lastly, he 
thinks nothing more divine than reason. So that this 
God, whom we know mentally and in speculation, from 
which traces we receive our impression, has no appear- 
ance at last. 

Persaeus, another disciple of Zeno, says that they 
who have made discoveries advantageous to the life of 
man, should be esteemed as gods ; and the very things, 
he says, which are healthful and beneficial, should 
have divine appellations ; so that he thinks it not suffi- 
cient to call them the discoveries of gods, but they 
themselves must be deemed divine. What can be 
more absurd than to ascribe divine honours to sordid 
and deformed things ; or to place among the gods such 
men as are dead, and mixed with the dust ; to whose 
memory no respect is required but mourning ? 

Chrysippus, who is looked upon as the most subtle 
interpreter of the dreams of the Stoics, has mustered 
up a numerous band of unknown gods ; and so un- 
known, that we are not able to form any idea about 
them, though our minds seem capable of framing any 
image. He says that the divine efficacy is placed in 
reason, and in the spirit and mind of universal nature ; 
that the world, with an universal effusion of its spirit, 



book r. OF THE GODS. 25 

is God; that the superior part of that spirit, which is 
the mind and reason, is the great principle of nature, 
containing and preserving the chain of all things ; that 
the divinity is the power of fate, and the necessity of 
future events. He deifies fire also, and what I before 
called the sky, and those elements which naturally pro- 
ceed from it, water, earth, and air. He gives divinity 
to the sun, moon, stars, and universal space, the grand 
capacity of all things ; and to those men likewise who 
have obtained immortality*. He maintains the sky to 
be what men call Jupiter ; the air, which pervades the 
sea, to be Neptune; and the earth, Ceres. In like 
manner he applies the names of the other deities. He 
says that Jupiter is that immutable and eternal law, 
which guides and directs us in our manners ; and this 
he calls fatal necessity, the everlasting verity of future 
events. But none of all these seem to carry any indica- 
tion of divine virtue in them. These are the doctrines 
contained in his first book of the Nature of the Gods. 
In the second he endeavours to accommodate the fables 
of Orpheus, Musaeus, Hesiod, and Homer, to what he 
hath advanced in the first; that the most ancient 
poets, who never thought of these things, may seem to 
have been Stoics. 

Diogenes, the Babylonian, was a follower of the 
doctrine of Chrysippus; and in that book he wrote, 
entitled, concerning Minerva, he separates the account 
of Jupiter's bringing forth, and the birth of that vir- 
gin", from the fabulous, and reduces it to a natural 
construction. 

1 Such as have been declared immortal, he means, by the suffrage of the 
people, or by the law. 

u Minerva, who in the fable is said to have sprung from the head of 



26 OF THE NATURE book i. 

I have hitherto rather exposed the dreams of dotards 
than given the opinions of philosophers. The tales of 
the poets, whose sweetness of language makes them 
noxious, are not much more absurd ; who have intro- 
duced the gods enraged with anger and inflamed with 
lust; and have described their wars, their battles, 
combats, and their wounds ; their hatreds, dissensions, 
discords, births, deaths, complaints, and lamentations ; 
their indulgences in all kinds of intemperance; their 
adulteries, their chains, their amours with mortals, and 
mortals begotten by immortals. To these erroneous 
flights of the poets may be added the prodigies of the 
magi, the same extravagances of the Egyptians, and 
the prejudices of the vulgar, which, through their 
ignorance of truth, are in the greatest uncertainty. 

Whoever thinks how rashly and inconsiderately these 
tenets are advanced must entertain a veneration for 
Epicurus, and rank him in the number of those beings 
who are the subject of this dispute; for he alone first 
founded the existence of the gods x on the impression 
which nature herself hath made on the minds of all men. 
For what nation, what people are there, who have not, 



Jupiter, which the mycologists interpret thus : Jupiter signifies the su- 
preme power, and Minerva wisdom ; so that wisdom is said to spring from 
the mind of the supreme power. This is not lord Bacon's interpretation 
only, in his treatise on the Wisdom of the Ancients, but the explanation of 
several of the ancients ; and this doubtless is the physiological, or natural, 
interpretation of Diogenes, which Velleius here censures. 

x The words of Tully are, solus enim vidit primum esse Deos, quod in 
omnium animis eorum notionem inpressisset ipsa natura, which are not en- 
tirely free from ambiguity, though an accurate person cannot mistake them. 
The meaning is, that Epicurus first discovered the existence of the gods, 
from his observation, that nature has impressed that notion in the minds of 
all, previous to any instruction ; so that he first discovered this universal 
impression to be a certain indication of the being of the gods. 



book i. OF THE GODS. 21 

without any learning, a natural idea, or pre-notion of a 
deity. Epicurus calls this irgoXyxptv y ; that is, an ante- 
cedent information of the fact in the mind, without 
which nothing can be understood, inquired after, or 
discoursed upon; the force and advantage of which 
reasoning we receive from that celestial volume of Epi- 
curus, concerning the Rule and Judgment z . 

Here you see the foundation of this question clearly 
laid ; for since it is the constant and universal opinion 
of mankind, independent of education, custom, or law, 
that there are gods, it must necessarily follow that this 
knowledge is implanted in our minds, or rather innate 
in us. That to which there is a general agreement 
through nature, must infallibly be true; therefore it 
must be allowed that there are gods; for in this we 
have the concurrence not only of almost all philoso- 
phers, but likewise of the illiterate. It must be also 
confessed that we have naturally this idea, as I said 
before, or pre-notion of the existence of the gods. As 
new things require new names, so that pre-notion was 
called vpok^it by Epicurus ; an appellation never used 
before. On the same principle of reasoning we think 



y By 7rp6\r)^ig we are to understand an innate notion of the Deity 
implanted in our minds, as it is explained here by Velleius ; and agreeable 
to which is the explanation we find of it in Diogenes Laertius's life of Epi- 
curus. It is an anticipation (which is the literal meaning of the word) of 
those ideas which would flow in from external appearances. How incon- 
sistent this doctrine is with true philosophy every one knows, who maturely 
considers the nature of our ideas, and how they are conveyed to our minds 
by our senses. A doctrine that Mr. Locke was very successful in ad- 
vancing, though too prolix. 

z Diogenes Laertius calls this treatise, 7rtpi Kpirfjpiov r\ Kavwv, that is, 
concerning the Judgment or the Rule. Cicero makes Velleius call it coeleste 
volumen, not only because of the great value which that sect prized it at, 
but because the Epicureans said the book fell from heaven. 



28 OF THE NATURE book i. 

the gods are happy and immortal ; for that nature, 
which hath assured us there are gods, hath likewise 
imprinted in our minds the knowledge of their immor- 
tality and felicity ; and if so, what Epicurus hath de- 
clared, in these words, is true ; that which is eternally 
happy, cannot be burthened with any labour itself, or 
impose any on another; nor can it be influenced by 
resentment or favour, because such beings must be 
weak and frail a . We have said enough to prove that 
we should worship the gods with piety, and without 
superstition, if that was the only question. The 
superior and excellent nature of the gods requires a 
pious adoration from men, because it is possessed of 
immortality and the most exalted felicity ; for whatever 
excels has a right to veneration ; and all fear of the 
power and anger of the gods should be banished ; for 
anger and affection are inconsistent with the nature of 
an happy and immortal being. These apprehensions 
being removed, no dread of the superior powers re- 
mains. To confirm this opinion, our curiosity leads us 
to inquire into the form, the life, and action, of the 
spirit of the Deity. 

With regard to his form, we are directed partly by 
nature, and partly by reason. All men are told by 
nature that none but a human form can be ascribed 
to the gods; for under what other image did it ever 
appear to any one either sleeping or waking ? and, with- 
out having recourse to our first notions b , reason itself 



* The original passage of this is quoted by Diogenes Laertius from Epi- 
curus, and by Eustathiuson the last book of Homer's Iliad. 

b The 7rp6\r]ypig of Epicurus, before mentioned, is what he here means. 
He distinguishes it, but falsely, from reason, as previous to all the ideas 
which are conveyed to the mind through the senses. 



book i. OF THE GODS. 29 

declares the same ; for as it is easy to conceive that the 
most excellent nature, either because of its happiness 
or immortality, should be the most beautiful, what com- 
position of limbs, what conformity of lineaments, what 
form, what aspect, can be more beautiful than the 
human? Your sect c , Lucilius, (not like my friend 
Cotta, who is sometimes for and sometimes against) 
when they represent the divine art and workmanship 
in the human body, are used to describe not only the 
conveniency but the beauty of it. Therefore if the 
human form excels all animals, as God himself is ani- 
mated, he must surely be of that form which is the 
most beautiful. Besides, the gods are granted to be 
perfectly happy; and nobody can be happy without 
virtue, nor can virtue exist where reason is not ; and 
reason can reside in none but the human form ; the 
gods therefore must be acknowledged to be of human 
form ; yet that form is not body, but as if it was 
body ; nor does it contain any blood, but something as 
if it was blood d . Though these distinctions were more 
acutely devised, and more artfully expressed, by Epi- 
curus than any common capacity can conceive ; yet, 
depending on your understanding, I am shorter on the 
subject than otherwise I should be. 

Epicurus, who not only discovered the occult and 
almost hidden secrets of nature, but explained them 
with ease, teaches that the power and nature of the 
gods are not to be discerned by the senses, but by the 
mind ; nor are they to be considered as bodies of any 
solidity, or reduceable to number, like those things 

* The Stoics. 

d This part of the Epicurean creed is almost as inconsistent as what we 
find in some creeds of the Catholics. 



30 OF THE NATURE book i. 

which, because of their firmness, he calls a-repepvia e ; 
but as images, perceived by similitude and transition. 
As infinite kinds of those images result from innu- 
merable individuals, and centre in the gods, our minds 
and understanding are intent and fixed with the 
greatest delight on them, in order to comprehend 
what that happy and eternal essence is. 

The mighty power of the infinite being is most 
worthy our great and earnest contemplation, the nature 
of which we must necessarily understand to be such, 
that everything correspondent is made to answer. 
This is called by Epicurus ta-ovofAia; that is, an equal 
distribution, or even disposition of things. From hence 
he draws this inference ; that, as there is such a vast 
multitude of mortals, there cannot be a less number of 
immortals ; and if those which perish are innumerable. 
Those which are preserved ought also to be infinite. 

Your sect, Balbus, frequently ask us how the gods 
live, and how they pass their time. Their life is the 
most happy, and the most abounding with all kinds of 
blessings, which can be conceived. They do nothing. 
They are embarrassed with no affairs, nor do they 
perform any work. They rejoice in the possession of 
their own wisdom and virtue. They are satisfied that 
they shall ever enjoy the fulness of eternal pleasures. 

Such a deity may properly be called happy; but 
yours is a most laborious god. For let us suppose the 
world a deity; what can be a more uneasy state than, 
without the least cessation, to be whirled about the 

e 2r6j0s/ivia is the word which Epicurus used to distinguish between 
those objects which are perceptible to sense, and those which are imper- 
ceptible ; as the essence of the divine being, and the various operations of 
the divine power. 



book i. OF THE GODS. 31 

axle-tree of heaven with a surprising celerity ? But 
nothing can be happy that is not at ease. Or let us 
suppose a deity residing in the world, who directs and 
governs it, who preserves the courses of the stars, the 
changes of the seasons, and the vicissitudes and orders 
of things, surveying the earth and the seas, and accom- 
modating them to the advantage and necessities of 
man. Truly this deity is embarrassed with a very 
troublesome and laborious office. We place a happy 
life in a tranquillity of mind and an exemption from all 
employment. 

The philosopher, from whom we received all our 
knowledge, hath taught us that the world was made 
by nature ; that there was no occasion for a workhouse 
to frame it in ; and that though you deny the possibility 
of such a work without divine skill, it is so easy to 
her, that she has made, does make, and will make, in- 
numerable worlds. But, because you do not conceive 
that nature is able to produce such effects without 
some rational aid, you are forced, like the tragic 
poets f , at a loss for a conclusion, to have recourse to a 
deity; whose assistance you would not seek, if you 
could view that vast and unbounded magnitude of 
regions in all parts ; where the mind, extending and 
spreading itself, travels so far and wide that it can find 
no end, no extremity to stop at. In this immensity of 
breadth, length, and height, innumerable atoms are in 
agitation, and with infinite power ; which, notwith- 
standing the interposition of a void part of space, meet 
and cohere, and continue clinging to one another ; by 
this union these modifications and forms of things 

f Cicero, as Erasmus has observed, took this comparison from Plato, 
wtT7r«p ol TpaywSoTToZoi, etc. 



32 OF THE NATURE book i. 

arise, which, in your opinions, could not possibly be 
made without the help of bellows and anvils. Thus 
you have imposed on us an eternal master, whom we 
must dread day and night. For who can be free from 
fear of a Deity, who foresees, regards, and animadverts 
on everything, one who thinks all things his own, a 
curious, ever-busy God? 

Hence first arose your elpapuevi, as you call it, your 
fatal necessity ; so that, whatever happens, you affirm 
that it flows from an eternal chain and continuance of 
causes. Of what value is this philosophy, which, like 
old women and illiterate men, atrributes everything to 
fate? 

Then follows your pocvTwy, in Latin called divinatio, 
divination; which, if we would listen to you, would 
plunge us into such superstition, that we should fall 
down and worship your inspectors into sacrifices, your 
augurs, your soothsayers, your prophets, and your 
fortunetellers. 

Epicurus having freed us from these terrors and 
restored us to liberty, we have no dread of those 
beings, whom we have reason to think entirely free 
from all trouble themselves, and who do not impose 
any on others. We pay our adoration, indeed, with 
piety and reverence to that essence which is above all 
in excellence and perfection. But I fear my zeal for 
this doctrine has made me too prolix. However, I 
could not easily leave so eminent and important a sub- 
ject unfinished, though I must confess I should rather 
endeavour to hear than speak so long. 

Cotta, with his usual courtesy, then began. Vel- 
leius, says he, was it not for what you have advanced, 
I should have remained silent ; for I have often 



book i. OF THE GODS. 33 

observed, as I did just now upon hearing you, that I 
cannot so easily conceive why a proposition is true, as 
why it is false. Should you ask me what I take the 
nature of the gods to be, I should perhaps make no 
answer. Should you ask whether I think it as you 
have described it, I should answer in the negative. 
But, before I enter on the subject of your discourse, 
and what you have advanced upon it, I will give you 
my opinion of yourself. Your intimate friend L. 
Crassus has been often heard to say, that you doubt- 
less excelled all our learned Romans ; and that few 
Epicureans in Greece were to be compared to you. 
But, as I knew what a wonderful esteem he had for 
you, I imagined that might make him the more lavish 
in commendation of you. Though I do not choose to 
praise any one when present, yet I must confess that I 
think you have delivered your thoughts clearly on an 
obscure and very intricate subject; that you are not 
only copious in your sentiments, but more elegant in 
your language than your sect generally are. 

When I was at Athens I went often to hear Zeno, 
by the advice of Philo, who used to call him the chief 
of the Epicureans. As I heard how he delivered your 
principles, I am inclined to think myself the more able 
to refute them. He did not speak as many do ; but 
like you, distinctly, gravely, and elegantly; yet what 
frequently gave me great uneasiness when I heard him, 
as it did while I attended to you, was to see so excel- 
lent a genius falling into such frivolous (excuse my 
freedom), not to say foolish doctrines. However, I 
shall not at present offer anything better; for, as I 
said before, I can in most subjects, especially in 
physics, sooner discover what is not true than what is. 

D 



34 OF THE NATURE book i. 

If you should ask me what God is, or what his essence, 
I should follow the example of Simonides, who, when 
Hiero the tyrant proposed the same question to him, 
desired a day to consider of it. When he required his 
answer the next day, Simonides begged two days 
more, and often desiring double the number, instead of 
giving his answer, Hiero, with surprise, asked him his 
meaning in doing so: "Because," says he, " the longer 
I meditate on it the more obscure it appears to me." 
Simonides, who was not only a delightful poet, but 
reputed a wise and learned man in other branches of 
knowledge, had, I suppose, so many acute and refined 
arguments occur to him, that he was doubtful which 
was the truest, and therefore despaired of discovering 
any truth. But does your Epicurus (for I had rather 
contend with him than with you) say anything that is 
worthy the name of philosophy, or even of common 
sense? In the question concerning the nature of the 
gods, his first inquiry is whether there are gods or not. 
It would be dangerous, I believe, to be on the negative 
part in a public auditory ; but it is very safe in a dis- 
course of this kind, and in this company. I, who am a 
priest, and who think that religions and ceremonies 
ought sacredly to be maintained, would have the 
existence of the gods, which is the principal point in 
debate, not only fixed in opinion, but proved to a 
demonstration ; for many notions flow into and disturb 
the mind, which sometimes seem to convince us that 
there are none. But see how candidly I will behave to 
you, as I will not touch upon those tenets you hold in 
common with other philosophers, consequently I shall 
not dispute the existence of the gods; for that doc- 
trine is agreeable to almost all men and to myself in 



book i. OF THE GODS. 35 

particular ; but I shall oppose the reasons you give for 
it, which I think are very insufficient. 

You said that the general assent of men, of all 
nations, and all degrees, is an argument strong enough 
to induce us to acknowledge the being of the gods. 
This is not only a weak but a false argument; for first, 
how do you know the opinions of all nations ? I really 
believe there are many people so savage that they have 
no thought of a deity. What think you of Diagoras, 
who was called the atheist, and of Theodorus ? Did 
not they plainly deny the very essence of a deity? 
Protagoras of Abdera, whom you just now mentioned, 
the greatest sophist g of his age, was banished by order 
of the Athenians from their city and territories, and 
his books were publicly burnt, because these words 
were in the beginning of his treatise, " concerning the 
gods, I am unable to arrive at any knowledge whether 
there are, or are not, any." This, I imagine, restrained 
many from professing their disbelief of a deity ; since 
the doubt of it only could not escape punishment. 
What shall we say of the sacrilegious, the impious, 
and the perjured? If Tubulus, Lucius, Lupus, or 
Carbo the son of Neptune h , as Lucilius says, had 



s Cicero, in his Academical Questions, calls him a sophist who professes 
philosophy through ostentation or interest. 

h Tubulus, Lucius, Lupus, and Carbo, must be taken for execrable 
wretches, who rendered themselves notorious by their infamous actions ; 
and either of them has as much a title to be called the son of Neptune as 
any other, for that is only an appellation given to such men as were remark- 
ably terrible, and prone to injustice, rapine, and other acts of ferocity ; the 
reason of their being called sons of Neptune is, because of their analogy to 
the raging of the sea, to which the savage dispositions of such men are com- 
pared. Busiris, Amycus, and Antaeus, are called sons of Neptune ; *and 
Plautus, in his Miles Gloriosus, very humorously makes Pyrgopolynices 

D 2 



36 OF THE NATURE book i. 

believed there are gods, would either of them have 
carried his perjuries and impieties to such excess? 
Your reasoning therefore to confirm your assertion is 
not so conclusive as you think it is. But, as this is 
the manner in which other philosophers have argued 
on the same subject, I will take no farther notice of it 
at present; I rather choose to proceed to what is pro- 
perly your own. I allow that that there are gods. In- 
struct me then concerning their origin ; inform me 
where they are, what sort of body, what mind they 
have, and what their course of life ; for these I am 
desirous of knowing. 

You attribute the most absolute power and efficacy 
to atoms. Out of them you pretend everything is 
made. But there are no atoms ; for there is nothing 
without body ; every place is occupied by body ; 
therefore there can be no vacuum, no individual. 

I advance these principles of the naturalists, without 
knowing whether they are true or false ; yet they are 
more like truth than those absurdities you imbibed 
from Democritus, or before him from Leucippus, that 
there are certain light corpuscles, some smooth, some 
rough, some round, some square, some crooked, and 
bent as bows ; which, by a fortuitous concourse, made 



boast of his success over a grandson of Neptune. In this fragment of the 
comic poet Lucilius, 

Tubulus, si Lucius, umquam, 



Si Lupus, aut Carbo, aut Neptuniums,- 

Neptuni filius is tautologous, as the passage stands, if it be applicable to 
any one execrable wretch as well as another. Jos. Scaliger was for reject- 
ing the word aut before Neptuni, and so Carbo would be Neptuni Jilius ; 
and in that sense I have translated it, in which there is a climax that is 
elegant. 



book i. OF THE GODS. 37 

heaven and earth, without the influence of any natural 
power. 

This opinion, C. Velleius, you have brought down 
to these our times ; and you would sooner be deprived 
of the greatest advantages of life, than of that autho- 
rity; for before you knew those tenets, you thought 
you ought to profess yourself an Epicurean; so that it 
was necessary you should either embrace these absur- 
dities, or lose the philosophical character you had 
taken upon you; and what could bribe you to re- 
nounce the Epicurean opinion? Nothing, you say* 
can prevail on you to forsake the truth, and the sure 
means of a happy life. Is that therefore the truth ? 
for I shall not contest your happy life ; which you 
think the Deity himself does not enjoy, unless he lan- 
guishes in idleness. But where is truth? Is it in 
your innumerable worlds ; some of which are rising* 
some falling, in every point of time ? Or is it in your 
individual corpuscles, which form such excellent works 
without the direction of any natural power or reason? 
But I forget my promise, and exceed the bounds I 
first proposed. Granting then everything to be made 
of atoms, what advantage is that to your argument? 
For we are searching after the nature of the gods ; 
and allowing them to be made of atoms, they cannot 
be eternal ; because whatever is made of atoms must 
have had a beginning ; if so, there were no gods till 
such beginning ; and if the gods had a beginning they 
must necessarily have an end ; as you before contended 
against Plato's world. Where then is your beatitude 
and immortality, those attributes of the deity which 
by endeavouring to prove you are reduced to the 
greatest perplexities? For you said that God had. 



38 OF THE NATURE book. i. 

no body, but something as if it was body ; and no 
blood, but something as if it was blood. It is a fre- 
quent practice among you, when you assert anything 
that has no resemblance to truth, and would avoid 
reprehension, to advance some farther improbability. 
How much more ingenuous would it be to acknowledge 
a doubt than to persist in so shameless an opposition? 
Like Epicurus, who, when he found that if his atoms 
were allowed to descend by their own weight, our ac- 
tions could not be in our own power, because their 
motions would be certain and necessary, invented an 
expedient which escaped Democritus to avoid neces- 
sity. He says, that when the atoms descend by their 
own weight and gravity they move a little obliquely. 
There is something more scandalous in this than in 
acknowledging an inability to defend a proposition. 
His practice is the same against the logicians, who say 
that in all propositions in which yes or no is required, 
one of them must be true ; he was afraid that if this 
was granted, then in a proposition, that Epicurus will 
be alive or dead to-morrow, either one or the other 
must necessarily be ; therefore he absolutely denied 
the necessity of yes or no. Can anything show stu- 
pidity in a greater degree ? 

Zeno *, being pressed by Arcesilas k , who pronounced 
all things to be false which are perceived by the senses, 
said some were false but not all. Epicurus was afraid 



* Zeno here mentioned is not the same that Cotta spoke of before. This 
was the founder of the Stoics. The other was an Epicurean philosopher 
whom he had heard at Athens. 

k Diogenes Laertius calls Arcesilas author of the middle Academy. He 
went farther than most of the Academics in degrading the senses, by assert- 
ing all to be false that is seen by them. 



book. i. OF THE GODS. 39 

that if any one thing seen should be false, none could 
be true ; therefore he asserted all the senses to be in- 
fallible directors of truth. Nothing can be more rash 
than this ; for by endeavouring to repel a light stroke 
he receives a heavy blow. In the subject of the nature 
of the gods he falls into the same errors. Whilst he 
would avoid the concretion of individual bodies \ lest 
death and dissipation should be the consequence, he 
denies that the gods have body, but says they have 
something as if it was body ; and they have no blood, 
but something as if it was blood. I wonder how one 
priest" 1 can refrain from laughing when he sees another. 
It is yet a greater wonder that you can refrain from 
laughing amongst yourselves. It is no body, but as if 
it was body ! I could understand this if it were ap- 
plied to statues made of wax or clay ; but in regard to 
the Deity I am not able to discover what is meant by as 
if it was body, or as if it was blood. Nor indeed are 
you, Velleius; though you will not confess it. Those 
precepts are delivered to you as dictates, which Epicu- 
rus carelessly blundered out ; for he boasted, as we see 
in his writings, that he had no instructor ; which I 
could easily believe without his public declaration of it, 

• If any bodies are allowed to be compounded of individuals, it must like- 
wise be allowed that the same individuals which concrete or assemble to 
form one body, as that of a man, are liable to be reduced to as many indi- 
viduals again; for which reason Epicurus endeavoured to make the gods of 
other matter than the individuals which form mankind ; and so advanced 
the absurd idle doctrine of, no body, but as if it was body; no blood, but as 
if it was blood. 

m This was a saying of Cato the censor, as appears from Cicero's second 
book of Divination. Aruspex was an inspector into the sacrifices of the 
altar. I chose to translate it in one word; and when we consider the fop- 
peries and impostures of Romish priests this translation may very well be 
indulged. 



40 OF THE NATURE book i. 

for the same reason that I could believe the master of 
a very bad edifice boasting that he had no architect 
but himself; for there is nothing of the Academy, no- 
thing of the Lycaeum n , in his discipline ; nothing but 
puerilities. He might hear Xenocrates . Immortal 
gods, what teacher was he ! Yet there are those who 
believe he heard him ; but he says otherwise ; and I 
shall give more credit to his word than to another's. 
He confesses that he heard a certain disciple of Plato,, 
one Pamphilus, at Samos ; for he lived there when he 
was young, with his father and his brothers. His 
father Neocles was a farmer in those parts ; but the 
farm, I think, not being sufficient to maintain him, he 
turned schoolmaster ; yet Epicurus treats this Platonic 
with wonderful contempt; so fearful was he that it 
should be thought he had ever been instructed. But 
it is well known he had been a hearer of Nausiphanes 
the democritic ; and, since he could not deny it, he 
loaded him with contumelies in abundance. If he did 
not hear the democritical principles, what did he ever 
hear? What is there in Epicurus's physics that is not 
taken from Democritus ? For, though he altered some 
things, as what I mentioned before of the oblique mo- 
tion of the atoms, yet most of his doctrines are the 
same ; his atoms ; his vacuum ; his images ; infinity of 
space ; innumerable worlds, their rise and decay ; and 
almost every part of natural learning that he treats of. 
Now do you understand what is meant by as if it was 
body, and as if it was blood ? For I not only acknow- 



n The Lycaeum was a school near Athens, in which Aristotle taught, as 
Plato did in the Academy. 

° Xenocrates was so remarkahly dull that his name became a proverb. 



BOOK I. 



OF THE GODS. 41 



ledge that you are a better judge of it than I am, but I 
can bear it without envy. If any sentiments, indeed, 
are communicated without obscurity, what is there that 
Velleius can understand, and Cotta not? I know what 
body is, and what blood is ; but I cannot possibly find 
out the meaning of as if it was body, and as if it was 
blood. Do not you conceal your principles from me, 
as Pythagoras did his from those who were not his 
disciples ; neither be deliberately obscure like Heracli- 
tus. But the truth is (which I may say among us) you 
do not understand them yourself. 

This, I perceive, is what you contend for, that the 
gods have a certain figure that has nothing concrete, 
nothing solid, nothing of express substance, nothing 
prominent in it ; but that it is pure, smooth, and trans- 
parent. Let us suppose it the same with the Venus p 
of Coos ; which is not a body, but the representation 
of a body ; nor is the red, which is drawn there and 
mixed with the white, real blood, but a certain resem- 
blance of blood ; so in Epicurus's deity there is no real 
substance, but the resemblance of substance. Let me 
take for granted what is not to be understood ; then 
tell me what are the lineaments and figures of these 
penciled deities. Here you have plenty of arguments, 
by which you would show the gods to be in human 
form. The first is, that our minds are so anticipated 
and prepossessed, that whenever we think of a deity 
the human shape occurs to us. The next is, that as 
the divine nature excels all things, so it ought to be of 
the most beautiful form, and there is no form more 



p The Coan Venus was the work of Apelles, highly applauded by the 
ancients. 



42 OF THE NATURE book i. 

beautiful than the human ; and the third is, that reason 
cannot reside in any other shape. First, let us consider 
each argument separately. You seem to me to assume 
a principle, despotically I may say, that has no manner 
of probability in it. Who was ever so blind, in con- 
templating these subjects, as not to see that the gods 
were represented in human form, either by the par- 
ticular advice of wise men, who thought by those 
means the more easily to turn the minds of the igno- 
rant from a depravity of manners to the worship of the 
gods ; or through superstition, which was the cause of 
their believing that when they paid adoration to these 
images they approached the gods themselves. These 
conceits were not a little improved by the poets, paint- 
ers, and artificers. For it would not have been very 
easy to represent the gods debating and executing any 
work in another form ; and perhaps this opinion arose 
from the idea which mankind have of their own beauty. 
But do not you, who are so great an adept in physics, 
see what a soothing flatterer, what a sort of bawd, 
nature is to herself? Do you think there is any crea- 
ture on land or in the sea, that is not highly delighted 
with its own form ? If it was not so, why would not a 
bull leap a mare, or a horse a cow ? Do you believe 
an eagle, a lion, or a dolphin, prefer any shape to their 
own ? If nature therefore hath instructed us in the 
same manner, that nothing is more beautiful than man, 
what wonder is it that we, for that reason, should 
imagine the gods are of the human form ? Do you 
suppose, if beasts were endowed with reason, that 
every one would not give this prize of beauty to his 
own species ? Yet, by Hercules, (I speak as I think) 
though I am fond enough of myself, I dare not say I 



book i. OF THE GODS. 43 

excel in beauty that bull q which carried Europa. For 
the question here is not concerning our genius and 
elocution, but our species and figure. If we could 
make and assume to ourselves any form, would you be 
unwilling to resemble the sea-triton, as he is painted 
supported swimming on sea-monsters, whose bodies 
are partly human ? Here I touch on a difficult point ; 
for so great is the force of nature, that there is no man 
who would not choose to be like a man ; nor indeed no 
ant that would not be like an ant. But like what 
man? For how few can pretend to beauty ! When I 
was at Athens, the whole flock of youths afforded 
scarcely one. You laugh I see ; but what I tell you is 
the truth. Nay; to us who, after the examples of 
ancient philosophers, delight in boys, defects are often 
pleasing. Alcaeus r was charmed with a wart on a 
boy's knuckle ; but a wart is a blemish on the body ; 
yet it seemed a beauty to him. Q. Catullus, my friend 
and colleague's father, was enamoured with your freed- 
man Roscius s ; on whom he wrote these verses : 

i Cotta here very artfully alludes to the story of Jupiter and Europa, 
intimating that if a bull was not a beautiful creature, Jupiter would not 
have chosen that shape to have tempted Europa in. 

r Alcaeus the Lesbian poet, from whom the Alcaic verses were so 
called . 

s This must be Roscius the famous actor, for he was Velleius's freedman. 
We see here that an action looked upon in one age or country with the 
greatest abhorrence, is talked familiarly of, and without reserve, in another, 
and by men of the first rank both in quality and genius. Socrates, in Xe- 
nophon's Banquet, is represented speaking of the love for boys, with as 
little reserve. However, custom can never make that right, which is by 
nature wrong ; nor that wrong, which is right in the nature of things. 
There is a moral and natural turpitude in the action, by putting a part of 
the body to a use for which it was never designed. Wollaston, in his Re- 
ligion of Nature delineated, has laudably endeavoured to show that virtue 
consists in using everything as it ought to be used. 



44 OF THE NATURE book i. 

As once I stood to hail the rising day, 

Roscius, appearing on the left, I spied. 
Forgive me, gods, if I presume to say 

The mortal's beauty with th' immortal vied. 

Roscius more beautiful than a god ! yet he was then, 
as he now is, squint-eyed- But what signifies that, if 
his defects were beauties to Catullus? 

I return to the gods. Can we suppose any of them 
to be pink-eyed or to squint ? Have they any warts ? 
Are any of them hook-nosed, flap-eared, beetle-browed, 
or jolt-headed, as some of us are ? Or are they free 
from imperfections ? Let us grant you that. Are 
they all alike in the face ? For if they are many, one 
must necessarily be more beautiful than another ; and 
some deity would not be the most beautiful. Or if 
their faces are all alike, there would be an Academy 1 
in heaven ; for if one god does not differ from another 
there is no possibility of knowing or distinguishing 
them. What if your assertion, Velleius, prove abso- 
lutely false, that no form occurs to us, in our contem- 
plations on the Deity, but the human ? Will you, 
notwithstanding that, persist in the defence of such an 
absurdity ? Supposing that form occurs to us, as you 
say it does, and we know Jupiter, Juno, Minerva, 
Neptune, Vulcan, Apollo, and the other deities, by 
the countenances which painters and statuaries have 
given them ; and not only by their countenances, but 
by their decorations, their age, and attire ; yet the 

1 Cotta says, if every god was alike, there should be an Academy in 
heaven ; by which he means that one god could not be distinguished from 
another; that is, there would be the same uncertainty in heaven as is 
among the Academics. This is the true meaning, as appears from what 
Cotta says directly after. 



book i. OF THE GODS. 45 

Egyptians, the Syrians, and almost all barbarous na- 
tions", are without such distinctions. You may see a 
greater regard paid by them to certain beasts than by 
us to the most sacred temples and images of the gods ; 
for many shrines are rifled, and images of the deities 
are carried from their most sacred places by us ; but 
we never heard that an Egyptian offered any violence 
to a crocodile, an ibis x , or a cat. What do you think 
then? Do not the Egyptians esteem their sacred bull y , 
their apis, as a deity ? Yes, by Hercules, as certainly 
as you do our protectress Juno, whom you never be- 
hold, even in your dreams, without a goatskin, a spear, 
a shield, and broad sandals. But the Grecian Juno of 
Argos and the Roman Juno are not represented in this 
manner; so that the Grecians, the Lanuvinians 2 , and 
we, ascribe different forms to Juno ; and our Capitoline 
Jupiter is not the same with the Jupiter Ammon of 
the Africans. Therefore ought not a naturalist, that 
is, an inquirer into the secrets of nature, to be ashamed 
of seeking a testimony of truth from minds prepos- 
sessed by custom. According to the rule you have 
laid down, it may be said that Jupiter is always beard- 
ed, Apollo always beardless ; that Minerva has gray, 
and Neptune azure eyes; and indeed we must then 
honour that Vulcan at Athens, made by Alcamenes, 
whose lameness through his thin robes appears to be 



u Tully means those nations which were neither Greek nor Roman. 

x The ibis is a tall bird with a long bill, and is said to destroy serpents; 
which may be one reason why the Egyptians paid that reverence to it. 

y It was not every bull that would make a god; the bull which they 
called apis was distinguished by several marks in the body ; and without 
those marks no bull was deified. 

1 Lanuvinum was a part of Italy ; the inhabitants of which, as appears 
from this passage, had a different Juno from the Romans. 



46 OF THE NATURE book i. 

no deformity. Shall we therefore receive a lame deity, 
because we have such an account of him ? Consider, 
likewise, that the gods go by what names we give 
them. Now they have as many names as men have 
languages : for Vulcan is not called Vulcan in Italy, 
Africa, or Spain ; as you are called Velleius in all 
countries. Besides, the gods are innumerable, though 
the list of their names is of no great length even in the 
records of our priests. Have they no names? You 
must necessarily confess indeed they have none ; for 
what occasion is there for different names, if their 
persons are alike ? How much more laudable would 
it be, Velleius, to acknowledge that you do not know 
what you do not know, than to follow that blunderer, 
whom you must surely despise ? Do you think the 
Deity is like either me or you? Really you do not 
think he is like either of us. What is to be done then? 
Shall I call the sun, the moon, or the sky, a deity ? If 
so, they are consequently happy. But what pleasures 
can they enjoy ? And they are wise too. But how 
can wisdom reside in such shapes ? These are your 
own principles. Therefore if they are not of human 
form, as I have advanced, and you cannot persuade 
yourself that they are of any other, why are you 
cautious of denying absolutely the being of any gods ? 
You dare not deny it ; which is very prudent in you, 
though here you are not afraid of the people, but of 
the gods themselves. I have known Epicureans, who 
reverence* even the least images of the gods, though 
I perceive it to be the opinion of some, that Epicurus, 

a Sigilla numerantes is the common reading : but P. Manucius proposes 
vencruntes, which I choose as the better of the two; and in which sense I 
have translated it. 



book i. OF THE GODS. 47 

through fear of offending against the Athenian laws, 
has allowed a Deity in words, and destroyed him in 
fact ; so in those his select and short sentences, which 
are called by you Kvpiai §o£ai b , this, I think, is the first ; 
" That being, which is happy and immortal, is not 
burthened with any labour, nor imposes any on an- 
other." In his delivery of this sentence some think 
he avoided speaking clearly on purpose, though it was 
manifestly without design. But they judge ill of a 
man who had not the least art. It is doubtful whether 
he means that there is any being happy and immortal ; 
or that if there is a being happy, he must likewise be 
immortal. They do not consider that he speaks here 
indeed ambiguously ; but in many other places both 
he and Metrodorus explain themselves as clearly as 
you have done. He believed there are gods ; and he 
was most exceedingly afraid of what he declared ought 
to be no objects of fear, death and the gods ; with the 
apprehensions of which the common rank of people 
are very little affected ; but he says the minds of all 
mortals are terrified by them. Many thousands commit 
robberies in the face of death ; others rifle all the 
temples they can ; those, I warrant you, are mightily 
intimidated by the thoughts of death, and these by the 
fear of the gods I 

But since you dare not, for I am now addressing my 
discourse to Epicurus himself, absolutely deny the ex- 
istence of the gods, what hinders you from ascribing a 
divine nature to the sun, the world, or some eternal 
mind ? I never, says he, saw wisdom and a rational 
soul in any but a human form. What ! did you never 
observe something like them in the sun, the moon, or 

b Fundamental doctrines. 



48 OF THE NATURE book i. 

the five moving planets ? The sun, terminating his 
course in two extreme parts of one circle c , finishes his 
annual revolutions. The moon, receiving her light 
from the sun, completes the same d course in the space 
of a month. The five planets in the same circle, some 
nearer 6 , others more remote from the earth, begin the 
same courses together, and finish them in different 
spaces of time. Did you never observe anything of 
this kind, Epicurus ? So that according to you there 
can be neither sun, moon, nor stars, because nothing- 
can exist but what we have touched or seen f . What! 
have you seen the Deity himself? Why else do you 
believe there is any ? If this doctrine prevails, we must 
reject all that history relates, or reason discovers ; and 
the people who inhabit inland countries, must not be- 
lieve there is such a thing as the sea. This is so nar- 
row a way of thinking, that if you had been born in 
the isle of Seriphus, and had never been from it, 
where you frequently see little hares and foxes, you 
would not therefore believe that there are such beasts 
as lions and panthers ; and if any one should describe 
an elephant to you, you would think he designed to 
ridicule you. 



c That is, the zodiac. 

d The moon, as well as the sun, is indeed in the zodiac, but she does not 
measure the same course in a month. She moves in another line of the 
zodiac, nearer the earth. 

e They distinguished the sun and moon, though esteemed moving planets, 
from the other five, because of their great light and influence. By the 
same circle Cicero means the zodiac. Of the sun, moon, and five other 
planets, Saturn is the farthest distant from the earth, the moon the 
nearest. 

f According to the doctrines of Epicurus, none of these bodies themselves 
are clearly seen, but simulacra ex corporibus ejjiuentia : see p. 20, and the 
note in the same page. 



BOOK T. 



OF THE GODS. 49 



You indeed, Velleius, have concluded your argument 
not after the manner of your own sect, but of the 
logicians, to which your people are utter strangers. 
You have taken it for granted that the gods are 
happy. I allow it. You say that without virtue no 
one can be happy. I willingly concur with you in 
that. You likewise say, that virtue cannot reside 
where reason is not. That I must necessarily allow. 
Then you add that reason cannot exist but in a human 
form. Who do you think will admit that? If it were 
true, what occasion was there to come so gradually to 
it? And to what purpose? It is a presumption of 
your own. I perceive your gradations from happiness 
to virtue, and from virtue to reason; but how do you 
come from reason to human form ? There indeed you 
do not descend by degrees, but precipitately. Nor can 
I conceive why Epicurus should rather say the gods 
are like men, than that men are like the gods. You 
ask what is the difference ; for, say you, if this is like 
that, that is like this. I grant it; but this I assert, 
that the gods could not take their form from men ; for 
the gods always existed, and never had a beginning, if 
they are to exist eternally ; but men had a beginning ; 
therefore that form, of which the immortal gods are, 
must have had existence before mankind ; consequently 
the gods should not be said to be of human form, but 
our form should be called divine. However, let this 
be as you will. 

I now inquire after your mighty chance ; for you 
deny a divine intelligence to have had any share in the 
formation of things. But what is that mighty chance? 
Whence proceeded that happy concourse of atoms, 

E 



50 OF THE NATURE book i. 

which gave so sudden a rise to men in the form of 
gods? Are we to suppose the divine seed fell from 
heaven upon earth, and that men sprung up in the 
likeness of their celestial sires ? I wish you would 
assert it ; for I am not unwilling to acknowledge my 
relation to the gods. But you say nothing like it ; no, 
our resemblance to the gods, it seems, was by chance. 
Must I now seek for arguments to refute this doctrine 
seriously ? I wish I could as easily discover what is 
true as I can overthrow what is false. 

You have enumerated with so ready a memory, and 
so copiously, the opinions of philosophers, from Thales 
the Milesian, concerning the nature of the gods, that I 
am surprised to see so much learning in a Roman. 
But do you think they were all madmen, who could 
not perceive that hands and feet were necessary to the 
deity? Or when you consider what is the use and 
advantage of limbs in men, can you help being con- 
vinced that the gods have no need of them ? what 
necessity can there be of feet, without walking ; or of 
hands, without grasping ? The same may be asked 
of the other parts of the body, in which nothing is 
vain, nothing useless, nothing superfluous ; hence we 
may infer, that no art can imitate the skill of na- 
ture. Shall the deity be said to have a tongue, and 
not speak ; teeth, palate, and jaws, and no use for 
them ? Shall the members which nature has given to 
the body for the sake of generation be useless to the 
deity ? Nor would the internal parts be less super- 
fluous than the external. What comeliness is there in 
the heart, the lungs, the liver, and the rest of them, 
abstracted from their use ? I mention these because 



book i. OF THE GODS. 51 

you place them in the deity on account of the beauty 
of human form g . 

Depending on these dreams, not only Epicurus, 
Metrodorus, and Hermachus, declaimed against Py- 
thagoras, Plato, and Empedocles, but that little harlot 
Leontium presumed to write against Theophrastus : 
indeed she had a neat Attic style ; and notwithstanding 
the garden of Epicurus h abounded with these liberties, 
you are always complaining against them. Zeno wran- 
gled 1 . Albutius is not worth mentioning. Nothing 
could be more elegant or humane than Phsedrus, yet a 
smart expression would disgust the old man. Epi- 
curus treated Aristotle with great contumely. He 
foully slandered Phgedo, the disciple of Socrates. He 
pelted Timocrates k , the brother of his companion Me- 
trodorus, with w 7 hole volumes, because he dissented 
from him in some point of philosophy. He was un- 
grateful even to Democritus, after whom he copied; 
and his master Nausiphanes, from whom he learned 
nothing 1 , had no better treatment from him. Zeno 
gave abusive language not only to those who were 
then living, as Apollodorus, Syllus, and the rest ; but 



S These are strong arguments against the absurd doctrine of the deity 
being in human form ; which the Muggletonians, and some other ignorant 
Christians before them, have asserted on the authority of Moses, whom they 
misunderstood when he says " God created man in his own image, in the 
image of God created he him." Genesis, ch. i. ver. 27. 

h Epicurus taught his disciples in a garden. 

1 Zeno the Epicurean, who has been mentioned before. 

k Timocrates, according to Diogenes Laertius, was even with him in his 
abuses. 

1 That is, from whom he pretended to have learned nothing, as has been 
observed before in this book. Epicurus was ambitious of the title of avro- 
datcroG, that is, self-taught ; one who never received instruction from an- 
other. 

E 2 



52 OF THE NATURE book i. 

lie called Socrates, who was the father of philosophy, 
the attic buffoon™ ; using the Latin word scurra. He 
never called Chrysippus by any name but Chesippus 11 . 
And you yourself a little before, when you were num- 
bering up a senate, as we may call them, of philoso- 
phers, scrupled not to say that the most eminent men 
talked like foolish visionary dotards. Certainly, there- 
fore, if they have all erred in regard to the nature of 
the gods, it is to be feared there are no such beings. 
What you deliver on that head are all whimsical 
notions, and not worthy the consideration even of old 
women. You do not seem to be in the least aware 
what a task you draw on yourselves, if you should 
prevail on us to grant that the same form is common to 
gods and men. The deity would then require the 
same trouble in dressing , and the same care of the 
body, that mankind does. He must walk, run, lay 
down, lean, sit, hold, speak, and discourse. You need 
not be told the consequence of making the gods male 
and female. Therefore I cannot sufficiently wonder 
how that chief of yours came to entertain these odd 
opinions. 

But you constantly insist on the certainty of this 



111 Minucius Felix and Lactantius, as Dr. Davis observes, have treated 
Socrates with the same contumelious name which Cicero here uses, scurra; 
but our Christian fathers are not more commendable for using scurrilous 
language when speaking of that good man than the Epicurean Zeno. 

n From hence we may justly conclude that Zeno the Epicurean was an 
abusive nasty fellow, without any wit. I suppose when he called Chry- 
sippus Chesippus, he thought that an arch manner of calling him a shitten 
fellow, having the Greek verb x i & lv m his eye, which in Latin is cacare. 
We have an English word, not unlike in sound, by which our children ex- 
press the same meaning. 

That they should have the same trouble in dressing, and the same care 
of the body, if they were of the same form, is not a consequence. 



book i. OF THE GODS. 53 

tenet, that the deity is both happy and immortal. 
Supposing he is so, would his happiness be less perfect 
if he had not two feet? Or cannot that blessedness, 
or beatitude, call it which you will (they are both 
harsh terms, but we must mollify them by use), can it 
not, I say, exist in that sun, or in this world, or in 
some eternal mind, that has not human shape nor 
limbs? All you say against it is, that you never saw 
any happiness in the sun or the world. What then ? 
Did you ever see any world but this? No, you will 
say. Why, therefore, do you presume to assert that 
there are not only six hundred thousand worlds, but 
that they are innumerable. Reason tells you so. Will 
not reason tell you likewise, that as, in our inquiries 
into the most excellent nature, we find none but the 
divine Nature can be happy and eternal, so the same 
divine Nature surpasses us in excellence of mind; and, 
as in mind, so in body? Why therefore, as we are 
inferior in all other respects, should we be equal in 
form? Human virtue rather approaches nearer the 
divinity than human form. 

To return to the subject I was upon : What can be 
more childish than to assert that there are no such 
creatures as are generated in the Red sea or in India ? 
The most curious inquirer cannot arrive at the know- 
ledge of all those creatures which inhabit the earth, 
sea, fens, and rivers ; and shall we deny the existence 
of them because we never saw them ? That similitude 
which you are so very fond of is nothing to the pur- 
pose. Is not a dog like a wolf? And, as Ennius 

says, 

The monkey, filthiest beast, how like to man. 

Yet they differ in nature. No beast is more prudent 



54 OF THE NATURE book i. 

than an elephant ; yet where can you find any of a 
larger size ? I am speaking here of beasts. But 
among men, do we not see a disparity of manners in 
persons very much alike, and a similitude of manners 
in persons unlike ? If this sort of argument were once 
to prevail, Velleius, observe what it would lead to. 
You have laid it down as certain, that reason cannot 
possibly reside in any form but the human. Another 
may affirm, that it can exist in none but a terrestrial 
being ; in none but a being that is born, that grows up, 
and receives instruction ; and that consists of a soul and 
an infirm and perishable body ; in short, in none but a 
mortal man. But if you decline those opinions, why 
should a single form disturb you ? You perceive that 
man is possessed of reason and understanding, with all 
the infirmities I have mentioned interwoven with his 
being; abstracted from which, you nevertheless know 
God, you say, if the lineaments do but remain. This 
is not talking considerately, but at a venture ; for surely 
you did not think what an encumbrance anything su- 
perfluous or unuseful is, not only in a man, but a tree. 
How troublesome it is to have a finger too much ! And 
why so? Because neither use nor ornament requires 
more than five : but your deity has not only a finger 
more than he wants, but a head, a neck, shoulders, 
sides, a paunch, back, hams, hands, feet, thighs, and 
legs. Are these parts necessary to immortality? Are 
they conducive to the existence of the deity ? Is the 
face itself of use? Rather the brain, the heart, the 
lights, and the liver; for these are the seats of life. 
The features of the face contribute nothing to the pre- 
servation of it. 

You censured those, who, beholding those excellent 



book i. OF THE GODS. 55 

and stupendous works, the world and its respective 
parts, the heaven, the earth, the seas, and the splendour 
with which they are adorned ; who, contemplating the 
sun, moon, and stars ; and who, observing the maturity 
and changes of the seasons and vicissitudes of times, 
inferred from thence that there must be some excellent 
and eminent essence, that made, moves, directs, and 
governs them. Suppose they should mistake in their 
conjecture, yet I see what they aim at. But what is 
that great and noble work, which appears to you to be 
the effect of a divine mind, and from whence you con- 
clude that there are gods ? I have, say you, a certain 
information of a deity imprinted in my mind. Of a 
bearded Jupiter, I suppose, and a helmeted Minerva. 
But do you imagine them to be such? How much 
better are the notions of the ignorant vulgar, who not 
only believe the deities have members like ours, but 
that they make use of them ; and therefore they assign 
them a bow and arrows, a spear, a shield, a trident, 
and lightning : and though they do not behold the ac- 
tions of the gods, they cannot entertain a thought of 
a deity doing nothing. The Egyptians (so much ridi- 
culed) held no beast to be sacred but those from which 
they received some advantage. The ibis, a very large 
bird, with strong legs, and a horny long beak, destroys 
a great number of serpents. These birds keep Egypt 
from pestilential diseases, by killing and devouring the 
flying serpents, brought from the deserts of Libya by 
the south-west wind p , which prevents the mischief that 

p The wind mentioned by Cicero is ventus Africus, which is south-west 
from Egypt. Ammianus Marcellinus gives a lively description of these 
birds engaging in battle with these serpents in the air, their killing and de- 
vouring them. 



56 OF THE NATURE book i. 

may attend their biting while alive, or any infection 
when dead. I could speak of the advantage of the 
ichneumon q , the crocodile, and the cat r , but I am un- 
willing to be tedious ; yet I will conclude with observ- 
ing, that the barbarians paid divine honours to beasts, 
because of the benefits they received from them ; 
whereas your gods not only confer no benefit, but are 
idle and do nothing. They have nothing to do, your 
teacher says. Epicurus truly, like indolent boys, thinks 
nothing preferable to idleness ; yet those very boys, 
when they have a holiday, entertain themselves in some 
sportive exercise. But we are to suppose the deity in 
such an inactive state, that if he should move, we may 
justly fear he would be no longer happy. This doc- 
trine divests the gods of motion and operation ; besides, 
it encourages men to be lazy, as they are by this taught 
to believe, that the least labour is incompatible even 
with divine felicity. 

But let it be as you would have it, that the deity is 
in the form and image of a man. Where is his re- 
sidence ? what is his course of life ? and what is it that 
constitutes his happiness? For it seems necessary that 
he who would be happy should use and enjoy what 



<i The ichneumon is a rat, which the Egyptians revered because it de- 
stroyed the crocodile's eggs. But here seems to be a contradiction in the 
reasons usually assigned for their regard both to the ichneumon and the 
crocodile. The crocodile is said to have been worshipped, because it in- 
timidated the Arabian and other African robbers, when they attempted to 
pass the Nile into Egypt. Why therefore should the ichneumon be revered 
for destroying the crocodile's eggs? I can think of no reason but this : be- 
cause, by destroying the eggs, the crocodiles might be prevented increasing 
so much as to be dangerous to the Egyptians, and yet enough of them left 
to terrify the robbers. 

r An Egyptian cat was thought to be an antidote against the sting of 
an asp. 



book i. OF THE GODS. 57 

belongs to him. With regard to place, even inani- 
mates have their proper stations assigned; the earth 
the lowest, water is higher than the earth, the air is 
above the water, and fire has the highest situation. 
Some creatures inhabit the earth, some the water, and 
some, of an amphibious nature, live in both. There 
are some also, which are thought to be born in fire, 
and which often appear fluttering in burning furnaces. 
In the first place, therefore, I shall ask, where is the 
habitation of your deity ? and next, what motive is it 
that stirs him from his place, supposing he ever moves? 
Lastly, since it is proper to animated beings to have an 
inclination to something that is agreeable to their se- 
veral natures, what is it that the deity affects, and to 
what purpose does he exert the motion of his mind s 
and reason? In short, how is he happy, how eternal? 
Whichever of these points you touch upon, I am afraid 
you will come lamely off. There is no end of reasoning 
on a false foundation; for you asserted* likewise that 
the form of the deity is perceptible by the mind, but 
not by sense ; that it is neither solid nor invariable in 
number ; that it is to be discerned by similitude and 
transition", and that a constant supply of images is 

s Reason is a motion of the mind ; but the first motions of the mind are 
not always reasonable ; the use of reason therefore is, to check the first 
motions when leading to evil, and to indulge them when leading to good. 

1 Bishop Stillingfleet, in his Origines Sacrae, says almost the same ; but 
I dare say; if we exclude the senses in the search after the deity, we shall 
be but blanks in nature. There is no knowledge but what comes through 
those channels ; and though God is not the immediate object of sense, the 
senses must guide us to what knowledge we are capable of attaining con- 
cerning him. 

u A transition of images, our author means, which succeed one to an- 
other, from a constant supply of atoms, according to the doctrine of Epi- 
curus. This part of the Epicurean system is finely answered by Cotta, in 
what directly follows. 



58 OF THE NATURE book i. 

perpetually flowing from innumerable atoms, on which 
our minds being intent, we from thence conclude that 
essence to be happy and everlasting. 

What, in the name of those deities concerning 
whom we are now disputing, is the meaning of this? 
For, if they exist only in thought, and have no so- 
lidity nor substance, what difference can there be be- 
tween thinking of a hippocentaur, and thinking of a 
deity ? Other philosophers call every such effigiation 
of the mind, vain motion ; but you term it the approach 
and entrance of images into the mind. Thus when I 
imagine that I behold T. Gracchus haranguing the 
people in the capitol, and collecting their suffrages x 
concerning M. Octavius, I then call that a vain motion 
of the mind ; but you affirm, that the images of Grac- 
chus and Octavius are present, which, coming from the 
capitol, are conveyed to my mind. The case is the 
same, you say, in regard to the deity, with the frequent 
representation of which the mind is so affected, that 
from thence may be inferred the gods y are happy and 



x The original is, de M. Octavio deferentem siteilam ; some, says Lam - 
binus, read cistellam. The suffrages were first cast into a box, and then 
inspected j this expression, therefore, deferentem siteilam, or cistellam, 
means no more than collecting the suffrages. The history to which this 
alludes is preserved by Plutarch and Appian. 

y By the word deus, as often used by our author, we are to understand 
all the gods in that theology then treated of, and not a single personal 
deity ; so in this passage, hoc idem fieri (dicis understood) in deo, cujus 
crebra facie pellantur animi ; ex quo esse beati, atque tcterni, intelligantur ; 
the literal translation of which is, " the case is the same (you say understood) 
as to the deity, with the frequent representation of which our minds are so 
struck, or affected, that from thence may be inferred they are happy and 
eternal." Who are they ? The relative is to deus; that is, the gods in- 
cluded in deo, in the divine Nature. This transition from the singular to 
the plural number, when speaking of the divine Nature, is frequent in the 
writings of Cicero, and likewise of Seneca. A little before, Cotta says to 



book i. OF THE GODS. 59 

eternal. Let it be granted that there are such images 
by which the mind is affected, yet it is only a certain 
form that occurs ; and why must that form be pro- 
nounced happy, why eternal? What are those images 
you talk of, or whence do they proceed? This loose 
manner of arguing is taken from Democritus ; but he 
is reprehended by many for it ; nor can you derive any 
consequence from it ; but the whole system is weak 
and imperfect; or what can be less within the bounds 
of probability than that the images of Homer, Archi- 
lochus, Romulus, Numa, Pythagoras, and Plato, should 
come into my mind ; yet not in the form in which they 
existed? How therefore can they be those persons? 
And whose images are they ? Aristotle tells us, that 
there never was such a person as Orpheus the poet 2 ; 
and it is said, that the verse called Orphic verse was 
the invention of Cercops a Pythagorean ; yet Orpheus, 
that is, the image of him, as you will have it, often 
runs in my head. What is the reason that I entertain 
one idea of the figure of the same person, and you 
another? Why do we image to ourselves such things 
as never had any existence, and which never can have, 

Velleius, dicebas speciem dei percipl cogitatione, non sensu, nee esse in ea 
tdlam soliditatem, neque eandem ad numerum permanere. You said that the 
form of the deity is perceptible by the mind, but not by sense; that it is 
neither solid nor invariable in number. By neque eandem ad numerum per- 
manere we must understand that the deity, in which all the divine Nature 
is comprehended, is not confined to one identical person, but extended to 
many. I have been the larger on this passage, because I am inclined to 
think that this remark, on the manner in which the word dens is often used, 
may be of advantage to those who read the writings of our author. 

z The best commentators on this passage agree, that Cicero does not mean 
that Aristotle affirmed there was no such person as Orpheus, but that there 
was no such poet, and that the verse called Orphic was said to be the 
invention of another. The passage of Aristotle to which Cicero here 
alludes, has, as Dr. Davis observes, long been lost. 



60 OF THE NATURE book i. 

as Scyllas a and Chimaeras? Why do we frame ideas 
of men, countries, and cities, which we never saw ? 
How do I form representations of them as I think fit ? 
How do they come to me, even in my sleep, without 
being called "or sought after? 

The whole affair, Velleius, is ridiculous. You do 
not impose images on our eyes only, but on our minds ; 
so great is your privilege of prating ! But how rashly 
do you b say there is a transition of images frequently 
flowing, and therefore out of many one must be per- 
ceived ! I should be ashamed of my ignorance, if you, 
who assert this, could conceive it yourselves ; for how 
do you prove that these images are continued in unin- 
terrupted motion c ? Or, if uninterrupted, how eternal ? 
There is a constant supply, you say, of innumerable 
atoms. But must they, for that reason, be all eternal ? 
To elude this, you have recourse to equilibration (for 
so, with your leave, I will call your lo-ovo/A<a d ), and say, 
that, as there is a sort of nature mortal, there is a sort 
immortal ; by the same rule, as there are men mortal, 
there are men immortal ; and as some arise from the 
earth, some must arise from the water also; and as 
there are causes which destrov, there must be causes 
which preserve. Be it as you say; but let those causes 
preserve which have existence themselves ; I cannot 
conceive these your gods to have any. 

a Virgil, in his third book of the iEneid, has described the rock Scylla as 
a monster; and Lucretius has described Chimaera, a mountain in Lycia, as 
another. 

b That is, the Epicureans. 

c These images are to be understood as in a constant uninterrupted 
motion, and never to rest; in which sense Lucretius delivers this doctrine 
of images after Epicurus : 

Nee mora, nee requies, inter datur nllu fluendi. 

d A just proportion between the different sorts of beings. 



book i. OF THE GODS. 61 

But how does all this face of things arise from in- 
dividual corpuscles? Were there any such atoms (as 
there are not), they might perhaps impel one another, 
and be jumbled together in their motion ; but they 
could never be able to form, figure, colour, or animate; 
so that you by no means demonstrate the immortality 
of your deity. Let us now inquire into his happiness. 
It is certain that without virtue there can be no happi- 
ness; but virtue consists in action: now, your deity does 
nothing, therefore he is void of virtue, consequently 
cannot be happy. What sort of life does he lead? 
He has a constant supply, you say, of good things un- 
mixed with bad : what are those good things ? Sensual 
pleasures, no doubt; for you know no delight of the 
mind, but what arises from the body, and returns to it. 
I do not suppose, Velleius, that you are like some of 
the Epicureans, who are ashamed of Epicurus's words 6 , 
in which he openly avows, that he has no idea of any 
good separate from wanton and obscene pleasures, 
which without a blush he names distinctly. What 
food, therefore, what drink, what variety of music or 
flowers, what kind of contact, what odours, will you 
offer to the gods, to fill them with pleasures ? The 
poets, indeed, provide them banquets of nectar and 
ambrosia, and a Hebe or a Ganymede to serve up the 
cup. But what is it, Epicurus, that you do for them ? 
for I do not see from whence your deity should have 
those things, nor how he could use them. Therefore 
the nature of man is better constituted for a happy life 



e Some give quos non pudeat earum Epicuri vocum ; but the best copies 
have not non; nor would it be consistent with Cotta to say quos non pu- 
deat; for he throughout represents Velleius as a perfect Epicurean in every 
article. 



62 OF THE NATURE book i. 

« 
than the nature of the gods, because men enjoy various 

kinds of pleasures ; but those you look on as super- 
ficial, which delight the senses only by a titillation, as 
Epicurus calls it. What end is there of this trifling ? 
Even Philo, who followed the Academy, could not bear 
to hear the soft and luscious delights of the Epicureans 
despised ; for he perfectly remembered and repeated 
many sentences of Epicurus in the very words in which 
they were written. He likewise recited many, which 
were more gross, from Metrodorus, the sage colleague 
of Epicurus, who blamed his brother Timocrates, be- 
cause he would not allow that a happy life consists in 
pampering the belly ; nor has he done it once only, 
but often. You grant what I say, I perceive ; for you 
know it to be true. I can produce the books if you 
should deny it ; but I do not now undertake to oppose 
your reducing all things to pleasure : that is another 
question. What I am now showing is, that your gods 
are void of pleasure, and therefore, according to your 
own manner of reasoning, they are not happy. But 
they are free from pain. Is that sufficient for beings 
who are supposed to enjoy all good things, and the 
most supreme felicity? The deity, they say, is con- 
stantly meditating on his own happiness, having no 
other idea in his mind. Consider a little ; reflect what 
a figure the deity would make, idly thinking of nothing 
through all eternity but " It is very well with me, and I 
am happy;" nor do I see why this happy deity should 
not fear being destroyed, since without any intermis- 
sion he is drove and agitated by an everlasting incur- 
sion of atoms, and from whom images are constantly 
flowing. Your deity, therefore, is neither happy nor 
eternal. Epicurus, it seems, has written books con- 



book i. OF THE GODS. 63 

cerning sanctity and piety to the gods. But how doea 
he speak on these subjects? You would say, that you 
heard Coruncanius or Scsevola, the high priests, and 
not him, who tore up all religion by the roots, and who 
overthrew the temples and altars of the immortal gods, 
not with hands, like Xerxes f , but with arguments; for, 
what reason is there that men should worship the gods, 
when the gods, as you say, not only do not regard men, 
but are entirely careless of everything, and absolutely 
do nothing? But they are, you say, of so glorious and 
excellent a nature, that a wise man is induced by their 
excellence to adore them. Can there be any glory in 
that nature which only contemplates its own happiness, 
and neither will do, nor does, nor ever did, anything ? 
Besides, what piety is due to a being from whom you 
receive nothing ? or how are you indebted to him who 
bestows no benefits ? Piety, you say, is a justice to- 
wards the gods ; but what right have they to it, when 
there is no communication between us ? And sanctity 
is the knowledge of worshipping them ; but I do not 
understand why they are to be worshipped, if we are 
neither to receive nor expect any good from them ; and 
why should we worship them from an admiration only 
of that nature, in which we can behold nothing ex- 
cellent ? 

You value yourselves upon being free from super- 
stition, which is a consequence attending the disbelief 
of the divinity ; for do you imagine Diagoras or Theo- 
dorus, who absolutely denied the being of the gods, 
could be superstitious ? I do not suspect even Prota- 
goras, who doubted whether there are gods or not. 

f The destruction of the temples by Xerxes, when he invaded Greece, is 
related by Herodotus. 



G4 OF THE NATURE book i. 

The opinions of these philosophers are not only de- 
structive of superstition, which arises from a vain fear 
of the gods, but of religion also, which consists in a 
pious adoration of them. What think you of those, 
who have asserted that the whole doctrine concerning 
the immortal gods was the invention of politicians, 
whose view was to govern that part of the community 
by religion, which reason could not influence ? Are not 
their opinions subversive of all religion ? Or what re- 
ligion did Prodicus the Chian g leave, who held that 
everything beneficial to human life should be numbered 
amongst the gods? Were not they likewise void of 
religion, who taught that the deities, at present the ob- 
ject of our prayers and adoration, were valiant, illus- 
trious, and mighty men, who arose to divinity after 
death? Euhemerus' 1 , whom our Ennius translated and 
followed more than other authors, hath particularly 
advanced this doctrine, and treated of the deaths and 
burials of the gods ; whether then may he be said to 
have confirmed religion, or to have totally subverted 
it? I shall say nothing of that sacred and august Eleu- 
sina*, into whose mysteries the most distant nations 
were initiated, nor of those in Samo xi.ctce, or those in 
Lemnos k , secretly resorted to by night* ad surrounded 



s He is called TIpodiKog 6 Xioc, or Xaoe, by Sextus Empericus, who 
names the sun, moon, the fountains, rivers, and fruits of the earth, amongst 
the divinities of Prodicus. 

h A Greek historian, or rather relater of fables, mentioned by Lactantius 
and Minucius Felix as giving an account of the births, marriages, offsprings, 
exploits, countries, deaths, and burials of the gods. 

1 Ceres was called Eleusina, from a famous temple dedicated to her at 
Eleusis, near Athens. 

J 4 Lemnos is an isle in the --Egean sea, not far from Thrace, in Samo- 
thracia, where Cybele, the mother of the gods, was sacrificed to and ap- 



book r. OF THE GODS. 65 

by thick and shady groves; which, described as reason 
should direct, rather explain the nature of things than 
discover the knowledge of the gods. 

Even that great man Democritus, from whose foun- 
tains Epicurus watered his little garden 1 , seems to me 
to be puzzled about the nature of the gods. One while, 
he thinks that there are images endowed with divinity, 
inherent in the universality of things; another while, 
that the principles and minds contained in the uni- 
verse are gods; then he attributes divinity to animated 
images, employing themselves in doing us good or 
harm ; and lastly, to certain images of such vast extent 
that they encompass the whole outside of the universe; 
all which opinions are more worthy the country" 1 of 
Democritus than of Democritus himself; for who can 
frame in his mind any ideas of such images ? Who can 
admire them ? Who can think they merit a religious 
adoration ? 

But Epicurus, in divesting the gods of the power of 
doing good, extirpates all religion from the minds of 
men ; for though he says the divine nature is the best 
and most excellent, he will not allow it to be suscep- 
tible of any bene olence; by which he destroys the 
chief and pecun.r attribute of the most perfect being; 
for what is better and more excellent than goodness 
and beneficence ? To refuse your gods that quality is 
to say that man is no object of their favour, nor gods 

peased with the blood of virgins. Vulcan, Mars, and other deities were, 
likewise worshipped there. 

1 Epicurus taught his disciples in a garden. 

1,1 His country was Abdera, the natives of which were remarkable lor 
their stupidity. The Abderites were used proverbially by 1 lie ancients, 
says Martial, 

Abderitana* pectnra plebis liabrs. 

F 



66 OF THE NATURE book i. 

of their regard ; that they neither love nor esteem any 
one ; in short, that they not only give themselves no 
trouble about us, but look on each other with the 
greatest indifference. 

How much more reasonable is the doctrine of the 
Stoics, whom you censure ! It is one of their maxims 
that " the wise are friends to the wise," though unknown 
to each other; for as nothing is more amiable than 
virtue, he who possesses it is worthy our love, to what- 
ever country he belongs. But what evils do your tenets 
bring, who make good actions and benevolence the 
marks of imbecility ? For, not to mention the power 
and nature of the gods, you hold that even men, if they 
had no need of mutual assistance, would be neither 
courteous nor beneficent. Is there no natural chanty 
in the dispositions of good men ? The very word cha- 
rity is a term of love, from which friendship is de- 
rived"; and if friendship is to centre in our own advan- 
tage only, without regard to him whom we esteem a 
friend, it cannot be called friendship, but a sort of 
traffic for our own profit. Pastures, lands, and herds of 
cattle, are valued in the same manner, on account of 
the profit we gather from them ; but charity and friend- 
ship expect no return. How much more reason have 
we to think that the gods, who want nothing, should 
love each other gratuitously, and employ themselves 
about us? If it be not so, why do we pray to, or adore, 
them ? Why do the priests preside over the altars, and 
the augurs over the auspices ? What have we to ask 



" This passage will not admit of a translation answerable to the sense of 
the original. Cicero says the word amicitia (friendship) is derived from 
charum (dear) and amor (love or affection). 

° These interrogations are nothing to the purpose. The priests presiding 



book i. OF THE GODS. 67 

of the gods, and why do we prefer our vows to them? 
But Epicurus, you say, has written a book concerning 
sanctity. We are trifled with by one less qualified for 
writing than prone to scribbling; for what sanctity 
should there be, if the gods take no care of human 
affairs? Or what animated essence is there that re- 
gards nothing? Therefore our friend Posidonius has 
well observed, in his fifth book of the Nature of the 
Gods, that Epicurus believed there were no gods, and 
that what he said of them was only a finesse to avoid 
d anger p ; and really he could not be so weak as to 
imagine that the deity has only the outward lines of a 
simple mortal, without any real solidity; that he has 
all the members of a man, without the least power to 
use them; a certain thin, pellucid being, neither fa- 
vourable nor beneficial to any one, neither regarding 
nor doing anything ; for, in the first place, there can 
be no such being in nature ; which Epicurus being 
conscious of, he allows the gods in words, and destroys 
them in fact; but, in the second place, if the deity be 
truly such, that he shows no favour, no benevolence to 
mankind, away with him ! For why should I entreat 
him to be propitious? He can be propitious to none, 
since, as you say, all favour and benevolence are the 
effects of imbecility. 



over the altars, the augurs over the auspices, which were divinations by the 
flight of birds, are no corroborations of any argument relating to the deity; 
nor more, indeed, is any outward show of religion. 

p The laws of the Athenians were very severe against sceptics and 
atheists. 



F 



9 



OF THE 



NATURE OF THE GODS. 



BOOK II. 

WHEN Cotta had thus concluded, says Velleius, I 
was really inconsiderate to engage with an Academic, 
who is likewise a rhetorician ; I should not have feared 
an Academic without eloquence, nor the most able 
rhetorician without that philosophy ; for I am neither 
puzzled by an empty flow of words, nor the most subtle 
reasonings delivered without a grace. You, Cotta, 
have excelled in both. You only wanted the assembly 
and judges a . But enough of this at present. Now 
let us hear Lucilius, if it be agreeable to him. I had 
much rather, says Balbus, hear Cotta resume his dis- 
course, and with the same eloquence show us the true 
gods, with which he has exploded the false ; for on 
such a subject the loose unsettled doctrine of the Aca- 
demy does not become a philosopher, a priest, a Cotta, 
whose opinions should be, like those we b hold, firm 

a It was a custom amongst the Romans to appoint judges in public dis- 
putes and other exercises ; and to him who was declared the victor some 
mark of honour was given: but this dispute was in private at a friend's 
house. 

b We Stoics. The Stoics were so called from the Greek word croa, a 
porch, in which Zeno taught his followers. Though the followers of Zeno 
were thus called from this circumstance, yet other philosophers likewise 
taught and disputed in porticos, which were long buildings supported by 
pillars and furnished with benches. 



book. ii. OF THE GODS. 69 

and certain. Epicurus has been more than sufficiently 
refuted ; but I would willingly hear your own senti- 
ments, Cotta. Do you forget, replies Cotta, what I 
at first said, that it is easier for me, especially on this 
point, to attack the opinions of another than to fix my 
own. Nay, though I had something remaining that 
might be clear, yet, having been so large already, I 
would now hear you speak in your turn. I submit, 
says Balbus, and shall be very brief; for as you have 
confuted the errors of Epicurus, my part in the dispute 
will be the shorter. 

Our sect divide the whole question concerning the 
immortal gods into four parts. First, that there are 
gods ; secondly, what they are ; thirdly, that the uni- 
verse is governed by them ; and lastly, that they re- 
gard mankind in particular. Let us enter on the first 
two articles, and defer the last to another opportunity, 
as they require more time to discuss. By no means, 
says Cotta; for we are now masters of our time c , and, 
though business required our attention, the present 
affair ought not to be postponed. 

The first point then, says Lucilius, I think needs no 
proof; for what can be so plain and evident, when 
we behold the heavens, and contemplate the celestial 
bodies, as the existence of some supreme, divine intel- 
ligence, by which they are governed ? Was it otherwise, 
Ennius would not, with an universal approbation, have 
said, 

Look up to the refulgent heav'n above, 
Which all men call, unanimously, Jove. 



c Cotta seems here to have an eye to Julius Caesar's engrossing the whole 
government of the commonwealth to himself, and discharging them from 
any concerns in public business. 



70 OF THE NATURE book ii. 

This is Jupiter, the governor of the world, who rules 
all things with his nod, and is, as the same Ennius 
adds, 

of gods and men the sire d , 

a propitious and all-powerful deity. Whoever doubts 
this may as well doubt there is a sun; for they are 
equally visible. This opinion, without such evidence, 
would not have been so durable ; it would not have ac- 
quired a greater force by length of years, or passed 
from age to age to us. What is fictitious and ill- 
grounded will at length decay ; for who now believes 
there ever was a hippocentaur or a chimera? Or is 
there an old woman in being so weak as to be afraid 
of those infernal monsters, which formerly possessed 
the minds of multitudes? Time wears away opinions 
founded on fictions, but confirms the dictates of nature; 
from whence it is, that, both amongst us and amongst 
other nations, sacred institutions and divine worship of 
the gods have been increased and refined from time to 
time. This is not to be imputed to chance or folly, 
but to the frequent appearance of the gods themselves. 
In the war with the Latins, when A. Posthumius the 
dictator attacked Octavius Mamilius the Tusculan at 
Regillus, Castor and Pollux 6 were seen fighting in our 

,l This manner of speaking of Jupiter frequently occurs in Homer, 

ttclttip avSpCiv re Otwv re, 

and has been used by Virgil and other poets since Ennius. 

e These idle tales, of the appearance of Castor and Pollux after their 
deaths, are related by several historians; by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 
by Plutarch, by Lucius Florus, and Valerius Maximus; the last two of 
whom call that which Cicero here names Regillus, the lake of Juturna. Lac- 
tantius, who mentions this story, does not clash with our author, for he 
mentions the lake Regillus as well as the lake of Juturna. Tins battle was 



book ii. OF THE GODS. 71 

army on horseback; and since that, the same offsprings 
of Tyndarus gave notice of the defeat of Perses f ; for 
P. Vatienus g , grandfather of the present youth of that 
name, coming in the night to Rome from his govern- 
ment of Reate h , two young men on white horses ap- 
peared to him, and told him king Perses was that day 
taken prisoner. This news he carried to the senate, 
who immediately threw him into prison for speaking 
inconsiderately on a state affair; but when it was con- 
firmed by letters from Paullus 1 , he was recompensed 
by the senate with land and exemption 14 . Nor do we 
forget when the Locrians defeated the people of Croto, 
in a great battle on the banks of the river Sagra, that 
it was known the same day at the Olympic games. 
The voices of the fauns 1 have been often heard, and 
deities have appeared in forms so visible, that he who 
doubts it must be hardened in stupidity or impiety" 1 . 

in the city of Rome, in which there was a lake called the lake of Juturna, 
which might likewise have been called Regillus. There was another lake 
in Italy called the lake of Juturna, near the river Numicius. Both these 
had their names from Juturna the sister of Turnus, who is introduced by 
Virgil, in the twelfth book of the iEneis, as a nymph presiding over rivers, 
lakes, and fountains. 

f Perses king of Macedon, who went to war with the Romans. 

£ Valerius Maximus calls this person Vatinius, and Ursinus says his 
name stands so in some old copies, but the best editors give Vatienus. 

h Reate, according to some accounts, was a town of the Sabines; some 
say it was a city in Umbria ; the Sabines were adjacent to the Umbrians. 
This Reate was a prefecturate, to which four prefects were sent yearly by 
the city pretor of Rome to keep courts, fairs, etc. 

1 Paullus ^milius the consul, who took Perses prisoner. 

k An exemption from serving in the wars, and from paying public taxes. 

1 A sort of rural deities. Cicero quotes the following passage from an 
old Latin poet in his book de Claris Oratoribus, entitled Brutus: 

■ Quos olim fauni vatesq ; canebant. 

In What a ridiculous manner of reasoning is this! to draw inferences 
from relations of facts which never could happen, and which the nature of 



72 OF THE NATURE book 11. 

What do predictions and foreknowledge mean but 
that future events are shown, pointed out, portended, 
and foretold to men? From whence they are called 
ostents, signs, portents, prodigies. But though we 
should esteem fabulous what is said of Mopsus, Ti- 
resias, Amphiaraus, Calchas, and Helenus 11 , who would 
not have been delivered down to us as augurs even in 
fable, if their art had been despised, are we not suf- 
ficiently apprised of the power of the gods by domestic 
examples ? Will not the temerity of P. Claudius, in 
the first Punic war, affect us? who, when the poultry 
were let out of the coop and would not feed , ordered 
them to be thrown into the water, and, joking upon 
the gods, said, with a sneer, let them drink since they 
will not eat; which piece of ridicule, being followed by 
a victory over his fleet, cost him many tears, and 
brought great calamity on the Roman people. Did 
not his colleague Junius, in the same war, lose his fleet 
in a tempest by disregarding the auspices? Claudius 

things can never admit of! It is surprising that the Stoics, who had so just 
a sense of rectitude of action, and who saw so nicely into the relations in 
which we stand to each other, should maintain such evident absurdities. 
But why should we wonder at them any more than at several eminent 
catholic authors, whose works are chequered with beauties and deformities, 
with reason and sophistry, with morality and real impiety 1 

These were all Greeks, some living a little before, and some at the time 
of the Trojan war. 

° Their not eating was regarded as an unlucky sign ; and Claudius's 
turning this superstitious observation on the poultry into ridicule is called, 
by Balbus, joking upon the gods. In the same manner a person in some 
countries would be accused of impiety if he should seem to ridicule any of 
the idle and impious stoiies which are esteemed miracles ; for the weak and 
prejudiced part of mankind do not distinguish between speaking against God 
and against falsehoods told of God. 

p Minds poisoned with superstition are too ready to ascribe effects to such 
causes as could no more produce such effects than they could make or un- 
make worlds. 



book ii. OF THE GODS. 73 

therefore was condemned by the people, and Junius 
killed himself. Ccelius q says that P. Flaminius, from 
his neglect of religion, fell at Thrasimenus ; a loss 
which the public severely felt. By these examples of 
destruction we may be assured that Rome owes her 
grandeur and success to the conduct of those who were 
tenacious of their religious duties; and if we compare 
ourselves to our neighbours, we shall find that we are 
infinitely distinguished by our zeal for religious cere- 
monies, though in other things we may be equalled if 
not excelled. Ought we to contemn Attius Navius's 
stafF r , with which he divided the regions of the vine to 
find his sow s ? I should despise it if I were not satisfied 



i Ccelius was an annalist. Livy gives an account of the defeat of C. 
Flaminius, who was consul. Hannibal destroyed him and his army of 
twenty-three thousand Romans, on the banks of the lake Thrasimenus, and 
took six thousand prisoners. 

r Lituus, which is the word here, was a slaff used by the augurs in their 
divinations, and is described by our author in his first book de Divinatione 
thus: " Lituus is a crooked staff, bending a little towards the top." 

s This short passage would be very obscure to the reader without an ex- 
planation fiom another of Cicero's treatises. The expression here, ad in- 
vest! gundum suem regiones vinece terminavit , which is a metaphor too bold, if 
it be not a sort of augural language, seems to me to have been the effect of 
carelessness in our great author ; for Navius did not divide the regions, as he 
calls them, of the vine to find his sow, but to find a grape. The story is 
this, as it is told by Cicero himself in his first book de Divinatione : Attius 
Navius, having lost one of his sows, made a vow that, if he found her, he 
would offer the largest grape on his vine to the deity ; accordingly, having 
found her, he stood in the midst of his vine, with his face towards the me- 
lidian, and divided the vine with his staff into four parts, and found a grape 
of a prodigious size. This story is followed by another a little more won- 
derful in the same book de Divinatione, where we are told that Tarquinius 
Priscus, hearing of this affair of the sow, sent for Attius Navius to see some 
proof of his augural art, and bade him cut a whetstone asunder with a razor, 
which he did before Tarquin and a great number of spectators, and was 
ever- after held in the greatest esteem ; upon which says Quintus, Cicero's 
brother, who is the person introduced disputing with our author on the sub- 
ject of divination, if we deny all these let us burn our annals, and pronounce 



74 OF THE NATURE book ii. 

that his predictions were verified by the victories of 
king Hostilius * ; but by the negligence of our nobility 
the discipline of the augury is omitted, the verity of 
the auspices despised, and only a mere form observed ; 
so that the most important affairs of the common- 
wealth, even the wars on which the public safety 
depends, are administered without any auspices u ; the 
peremnia x are disused-, no part of the acumina y per- 
formed ; no select men called to receive the military 
testaments 2 ; our generals now be^in their wars as soon 



the relations to be fictitious, etc. Hence we see what little credit ought to 
be paid to facts said to be done out of the ordinary course of nature. These 
miracles are well attested. They were recorded in the annals of a great 
people, believed by many learned and otherwise sagacious persons, and 
received as religious truths by the populace ; but the testimonies of ancient 
records, the credulity of some learned men, and the implicit faith of the 
vulgar, can never prove that to have been, which is impossible in the nature 
of things ever to be. 

1 Our great author clashes with himself in this circumstance; for in his 
first book de Divinatione, which he wrote after this, he mentions Attius 
Navius as doing those miraculous acts in the reign of Tarquinius Priscus, 
who was after Tullus Hostilius. 

u What I here, and in some other passages, call the auspices, are the 
auspicia, not the persons. I choose an English rather than a Latin termina- 
tion, when the sense is as well preserved by it ; for though the auspices are 
the persons in the original, the word may not improperly be used in English 
for the auspicia, especially as the person may easily be distinguished from 
the function by the context. 

x The peremnia were a sort of auspices performed just before the passing 
a river. 

y The acumina were a military auspices, and were partly performed on 
the point of a spear, from which they were called acumina. 

z Those were called testamenta in procinctu, which were made by soldiers 
just before an engagement, in the presence of men called as witnesses. It 
was a custom to call men, whose names were thought propitious, such as 
Salvius, Staterius, Valerius, Victor, etc. Such persons as those are what 
Tully means when he says nulli viri vocuntuv. These testamenta in pro- 
cinctu are called by the civilians, military testaments. Procinctus is the 
word used to express the state of an army in battle array, or a complete 
preparation to an action. 



BOOK II. 



OF TEIE GODS. 75 



as they have placed the auspices. The force of religion 
was so great amongst our ancestors, that some of their 
commanders have, with their faces veiled, and with the 
strongest expression of sincerity, sacrificed themselves 
to the immortal gods to save their country 3 . I could 
mention many of the sibylline prophecies, and many 
answers of the aruspices, to confirm those things 
which ought not to be doubted. For example, our 
augurs and the Etrurian b aruspices saw the success 
of their decisions when P. Scipio and C. Figulus were 
consuls ; Tiberius Gracchus, who was a second time 
consul, would have them rechosen, and the first ro- 
gatory as he was collecting the suffrages, fell down 
dead on the spot. Gracchus nevertheless went on with 
the assembly, but perceiving that this accident had a 
religious influence on the people, he brought the affair 
before the senate. The senate thought fit to refer it 
to those d who usually took cognizance of such things. 
The aruspices were called, and declared that Grac- 
chus had no right to be rogator of the assembly; to 



* Livy gives us an account of the death of a father and his son on such 
an occasion ; which is a strong proof of the force of superstition amongst 
the heathens ; but the Christians have generally set bounds to theirs, and 
rather choose to sacrifice the enemies of their superstitions, than sin against 
the great law of self-preservation. 

b The Etrurians were particularly distinguished for those arts of divina- 
tion which prevailed in Rome, the discipline being first introduced by them. 
Says our author, de Legibus, book ii. Etrurwque principes disciplinam do- 
cento. 

c The rogator, who collected the votes, and pronounced the person 
chosen. This story, which is related by other authors, is superstitiously 
introduced here by Balbus, with a view to prove that there are judgments- 
attending a non-observance of what he calls religious institutions. There 
were two sorts of rogators; one was the officer here mentioned, and the 
other was the rogator, or speaker of the whole assembly. 

d i. e. The aruspices, as appears immediately after. 



76 OF THE NATURE book 11. 

which, as I have heard my father say, he replied with 
great warmth ; Have I no right, who am consul, and 
augur, and favoured by the auspicia? Do you, who 
are Tuscans and barbarians, because you have authority 
over the Roman auspicia, pretend to give judgment in 
our assemblies? He then commanded them to with- 
draw ; but not long after wrote from his province e to 
the college f , acknowledging that in reading the books 5 
he remembered he had, according to the custom, 
pitched his tent, and had entered the pomcerium, in 
order to hold a senate, but that in repassing the same 
pomcerium h he forgot to auspicate ; which neglect 
rendered the creation of consuls irregular. The 
augurs laid the case before the senate. The senate 
decreed they should resign their charge, which they 
accordingly did. AVhat greater example need we seek 
for ? The wisest, and perhaps the most excellent of 
men, chose to confess his fault, which he might have 
concealed, rather than leave the public the least cause, 
for religious scruple ; and the consuls to quit thjfc 



e Which was Sardinia, as appears from one of Cicero's epistles to his 
brother Quintus. 

f Of soothsayers, etc. 

S Their sacred books of ceremonies. 

h The pomcerium was a place without the city, set apart for augural uses, 
and the like; near which a tent was pitched for the assembly at the election 
of consuls. In most editions of our author this tent is said to have been 
pitched in Scipio's gardens. It is an unnecessary addition, and I am of 
Dr. Davis's opinion, that it is not genuine. Valerius Maximus, who relates 
this account, and who also copies Cicero in the circumstances of the story, 
makes no mention of the gardens of Scipio. The reader must observe, that 
Gracchus entered the pomcerium before he went to the tent, and went 
through it as he returned ; but the nice point, which he settled by consult- 
ing the books of ceremonies, was, that he should have consulted the auspicia 
when he returned through the pomcerium, as well as when he entered it, 
in his way to the tent. 



book ii. OF THE GODS. 77 

highest office in the state rather than fill it a moment 
in defiance of religion. How great is the reputation of 
the augurs ! And is not the art of the aruspices 1 divine? 
Innumerable are the facts of this kind ; who, then, can 
doubt the existence of the gods? They who have inter- 
preters must certainly exist themselves ; now there are 
interpreters of the gods, therefore we must allow there 
are gods k . But it may be said, perhaps, that all pre- 
dictions are not accomplished. We may as well con- 
clude there is no art of physic, because all sick persons 
do not recover. The gods show us signs of future 
events ; if we are deceived by them it is not to be im- 
puted to the nature of the gods, but to the conjectures 
of men. All nations agree that there are gods; the 
opinion is innate, and, as it were, engraved in the minds 
of all men. The difference amongst us is what they 
are. Their existence no one denies. 

Cleanthes, one of our sect, imputes the idea of the 
gods, implanted in the minds of men, to four causes. 
The first is what I just now mentioned, a preknowledge 
of future things. The second is the great advantages 
we enjoy from the temperature of the air, the fertility 
of the earth, and the abundance of various kinds of 
benefits. The third from the terror with which the 
mind is affected by thunder, tempests, storms, snow, 
hail, devastation, pestilence, earthquakes often attended 
with hideous noises, showers of stones, and rain like 

1 The functions of the augurs and the aruspices were different ; the 
former was to divine by the flight of birds, and the latter by the entrails of 
victims. 

k If the existence of a deity could be no better proved than by this argu- 
ment, it could never be proved. Strange logic, that a man's bare pretensions 
to a knowledge of the divine will should be a proof of the truth of those 
pretentions, or of the existence of a deity ! 



78 OF THE NATURE book ii. 

drops of blood ; by rocks and sudden openings of the 
earth ; by monstrous births of men and beasts ; by 
meteors in the air, and blazing stars, by the Greeks 
called cometce 1 , by us crinitce, the appearance of 
which, in the late Octavian war m , were foreboders of 
great calamities ; by two suns, which, as I have heard 
my father say, happened in the consulate of Tuditanus 
and Aquillius, and in which year also another sun 
(P. Africanus) was extinguished. These things have 
terrified mankind, and raised an imagination of the 
existence of some celestial and divine power. His 
fourth cause, and that the strongest, is drawn from the 
regularity of the motion and revolution of the heavens, 
the distinction, variety, beauty, and order of the sun ; 
the appearance only of which is sufficient to convince 
us they are not the effects of chance ; as when we enter 
into a house, a school, or court, and observe the exact 
order, discipline, and method therein, we cannot sup- 
pose they are so regulated without a cause, but must 
conclude there is some one who commands, and to 
whom obedience is paid, so we have much greater 
reason to think that such wonderful motions, revo- 
lutions, and order of those many and great bodies, no 
part of which is impaired by the vast infinity of age, 
are governed by some intelligent being. 

Chrysippus, indeed, had a very penetrating genius ; 
yet such is the doctrine which he delivers, that he 
seems rather to have been instructed by nature, than 



1 They both signify hairy, or bearded. Stella crinita (some give cincin- 
nata) is the same with the cometa of the Greeks, a comet. 

m The war between Octavius and Cinna, the consuls. Octavius was 
slain by Cinna, who, in his fourth consulship, was stoned to death at 
Ancona. 



book it. OF THE GODS. 79 

to owe it to any discovery of his own. " If," says he, 
" there is anything in the universe which no human 
reason, ability, or power can make, the being who pro- 
duced it must certainly be preferable to man ; celestial 
bodies, and those of eternal order, cannot be made by 
man ; the being who made them is therefore preferable 
to man. What then is that being but a god ? If there 
is no deity, what is there better than man ; since he 
only is possessed of reason, the most excellent of all 
things ? But it is a foolish piece of vanity in man to 
think there is nothing preferable to him ; there is 
therefore something preferable, consequently there is 
certainly a God." 

When you behold a large and beautiful house, surely 
no one can persuade you it was built for mice and 
weasels, though you do not see the master; and would 
it not therefore be the height of folly to imagine that a 
world so pompously adorned, with the great variety 
and beauty of celestial bodies, and the extensive power 
and magnitude of the sea and land, was the peculiar 
appointment of man, and not the mansions of the 
immortal gods. 

It is plain also, that the most elevated regions are 
the best, and that the earth, being the lowest, is sur- 
rounded with the grossest air; that as we perceive, in 
some cities and countries, the capacities of men are 
naturally duller from the thickness of the climate, so 
mankind in general are affected by the heaviness of the 
air which surrounds the earth, the grossest region of 
the world ; yet even from this human understanding we 
may discover the existence of some intelligent agent 
that is divine, and wiser than ourselves ; for, as Socra- 
tes says in Xenophon, from whence had man his 



SO OF THE NATURE rook it. 

portion of understanding? Upon inquiry, it will ap- 
pear that the heat and moisture diffused through our 
bodies, that terrene solidity of parts, and our vital 
spirit, arise from earth, water, fire, and air, in which 
we breathe. But where did we find that, which excels 
all, reason I mean, or (if you please, in other terms) 
the mind, understanding, thought, prudence? And 
from whence did we take it ? Shall the world be 
possessed of all perfections except the principal ? Cer- 
tainly there is nothing better, more excellent, or more 
beautiful than the world, nor can we conceive any- 
thing to excel it; and if reason and wisdom are the 
greatest of all perfections, they must necessarily be a 
part of what we all allow to be the most excellent. 
Who is not convinced of the truth of what I assert 
from that agreeable, uniform, and continued agreement 
of things in the universe ? Could the earth at one 
season be adorned with flowers, at another be covered 
with snow? Or, among so many things in constant 
variation, could the approach and retreat of the sun 
be seen in the summer and winter solstices? Could 
the flux and reflux of the sea be affected by the in- 
crease or wane of the moon ? Could the different 
courses of the stars be preserved by the movement of 
the whole heaven ? Could they subsist, I say, in such 
a harmony of all the parts of the universe, without the 
continued influence of a divine spirit ? 

If these points are handled in a free and copious 
manner, as I purpose to do, they will be less liable to 
the cavils of the Academics"; but the narrow confined 
way in which Zeno° reasoned upon them, laid them 

n The Academics would not allow of the certainty of anything. 
The founder of the stoical sect. 



book it. OF THE GODS. 81 

more open to objection ; for as running streams are 
generally pure, and standing waters easily grow cor- 
rupt, so a fluency of expression washes away the 
censures p of the caviler, while a discourse too concise 
is almost defenceless; for what I enlarge upon was 
thus briefly laid down by Zeno : That which reasons is 
preferable to that which does not ; nothing is prefer- 
able to the world ; the world therefore reasons. By 
the same rule the world may be proved to be wise, 
happy, and eternal : for all these qualities are prefer- 
able to their contraries ; and nothing is preferable to 
the world ; the world therefore is a deity. He goes on ; 
no part of anything void of sense is capable of per- 
ception ; some parts of the world have perception ; 
the world therefore has sense. He proceeds, and 
pursues the argument closely ; nothing, says he, that 
is void of life and reason, can generate a living and 
rational being ; but the world generates living and 
rational beings ; the world therefore is a living and 
rational being. He concludesin his usual manner with 
a simile; if well-tuned pipes are formed out of the 
olive tree, is it to be doubted that there is an innate 
skill of piping in the olive tree itself? Or if harmo- 
nious lutes are made out of the plane tree, is there not 
the same inference that music is inherent in the plane 
tree? Why then should we not believe the world is a 
living and wise being, since it produces living and wise 
beings? 



p Vdia is the general reading, but I think a bad one ; for how are 
the fa dts of the caviler washed away by the fluency of expression in 
his antagonist. Dr. Davis, therefore, proposes convicia ; no injudicious 
emendation. 



82 OF THE NATURE book h. 

But as I am insensibly led into a length of discourse 
beyond my first design, (for I said the existence of the 
gods being evident to all, there was no need of any 
proof) I will demonstrate it by reasons deduced from 
the nature of things. It is a fact that all beings which 
take nourishment and increase, contain in them an effi- 
cacy of natural heat, without which they could neither 
be nourished nor increase. There must likewise be a 
regular and uniform motion in them. This motion is 
caused by the power of that heat or fire, and while it 
remains in us, sense and life are preserved, but the 
moment it abates and is extinguished, we ourselves 
decay and perish. 

By arguments like these, Cleanthes shows how great 
is the force of heat in all bodies. He observes, that 
there is no food so gross as not to be digested in a 
night and a day; and that even in the excrementitious 
parts, which nature rejects, there remains a heat. The 
veins and arteries seem, by their continual motion, to 
resemble the agitation of fire ; and when the heart of 
an animal is just plucked from the body, its palpitation 
is like a bursting flame. Everything therefore that has 
life, whether animal or vegetable, owes it to the heat 
inherent in it ; from whence we may conclude that the 
vital efficacy, pervading the whole world, is the natural 
effect of that heat. This will better appear on a more 
close explanation of this fiery quality, which vivifies all 
things. 

I shall therefore touch upon the most considerable 
parts of the world, which are sustained by heat; and 
first, it may be observed in earthly substances, that fire 
is produced from stones by striking one against another ; 



book ii. OF THE GODS. 83 

that the warm earth smokes q when just turned up, and 
that water is drawn warm from well-springs, especially 
in winter, because the great heat in the bosom of the 
earth, being then more dense, contracts the fire within 
it. Many reasons may be given to show that every- 
thing which the earth contains, and every seed within 
it, owes its production and growth to that temperament 
of heat. 

Even water hath a mixture of heat in it, without 
which it would neither be liquid nor fluid ; for it would 
not congeal by cold, it would not turn into ice and 
snow, and return again to its natural state without the 
power of heat inherent it ; as by northern and other 
cold winds it is frozen, so it dissolves and melts again 
by heat. The seas likewise we find, when agitated by 
winds, grow warm, from the heat included in that vast 
body of water ; for we cannot imagine it to be external 
and adventitious, but stirred up by agitation from the 
deep recesses of the seas, as our bodies grow warm 
with motion and exercise. 

The air, which indeed is the coldest element, is by 
no means void of heat; for there is a great quantity 
arising from the exhalations of water, which appears to 
be a sort of steam occasioned by its internal heat, like 
that of boiling liquors. 

The fourth part of the universe is entirely fire, and 
is the source of the salutary and vital heat in the rest. 

From hence we may conclude, that, as all parts of 
the world are sustained by heat, the world itself has so 
long subsisted from the same cause; and the rather, 

1 This, in the original, is a fragment of an old Latin verse : 



■Terramfumare calentem. 

G 2 



84 OF THE NATURE book ii. 

because it is observable that it communicates to all 
nature a generative virtue, to which all animals and 
vegetables must necessarily owe their birth and in- 
crease. 

This consequently is the cause that continues and 
preserves the world ; and, indeed, it is not destitute of 
sense and reason ; for in every essence that is not 
simple, but composed of several parts, there must be 
some predominant quality ; in man it is reason, and in 
beasts something resembling it. As for trees, and all 
the vegetable produce of the earth, it is thought to be 
in their roots. I call that the predominant quality 1 ", 
which the Greeks call 'HyepoviKov ; which must and ought 
to be the most excellent, wherever it is found. That, 
therefore, in which this prevailing quality resides, must 
be the most excellent, and most worthy the power and 
preeminence over all things. There is nothing in 
being that is not a part of the universe ; and as there 
are sense and reason in the parts of it, the superior 
part must consequently have them in a more eminent 
degree. The world, therefore, must necessarily be 
possessed of wisdom; and that element which embraces 

r The Latin word is principatus, which exactly corresponds with the 
Greek word here used by Tully ; by which is to be understood the superior, 
the most prevailing excellence in every kind and species of things through 
the universe ; that emphatical quality which stimulates everything to action 
in its respective sphere ; that which is the cause of the first motions in all 
things, and which directs them to their intended ends, as reason in man, the 
sense of pleasure and self-preservation in all animals; that which stimulates 
all vegetables to growth and increase, by whatever name we may call it; and 
that in which the superior excellence of the superior being consists. Some 
part of the Stoic's argument to prove the world a deity, contains as clear a 
definition of what deity is, as is in the power of any heathen to give ; that, 
says he, in which the superior excellence of universal nature consists, most 
deserves the name of deity, and must be tire best of all things, and most 
worthy of power and preeminence. 



book ii. OF THE GODS. 85 

all things must excel in perfection of reason. The 
world, therefore, is god, and the power of it is con- 
tained in that divine element. The heat also of the 
world is more pure, clear, and lively, and consequently 
better adapted to move the senses than the heat 
allotted us ; and vivifies and preserves all things within 
the compass of our knowledge. It is absurd therefore 
to say that the world, which is endued with a perfect, 
free, pure, spirituous, and active hear, is not sensitive, 
since by this heat men and beasts are preserved, and 
move, and think, more especially since this heat of the 
world is itself the sole principle of agitation, and has 
no external impulse, but is moved spontaneously ; for 
what can be more powerful than the world, which 
moves and raises that heat by which it subsists ? 

Let us hear Plato, who is regarded as a god amongst 
philosophers. He says there are two sorts of motion, 
one innate and the other external. That which is 
moved spontaneously, is more divine than that which is 
moved by another power; this self-motion he places 
only in the mind, and from thence concludes the first 
principle of motion is derived ; therefore, since all 
motion arises from the heat of the world, and that heat 
not the effect of any external impulse, but of its own 
virtue, it must necessarily be a spirit or mind; from 
whence it follows that the world is animated. On 
such reasoning is founded this opinion, that the world 
is possessed of understanding, because it hath more 
perfections in itself than any particular being; for as 
there is no part of our bodies so considerable as the 
whole, so there is no particular being equal to the 
whole universe ; from whence it follows, that wisdom 
must be an attribute of the world ; otherwise man, 



86 OF THE NATURE book ii. 

who is a part of the world, and possessed of reason, 
would be preferable to it. Thus if we proceed from 
the first rude unfinished beings to the most superior 
and perfect, we shall discover the nature of the gods. 
For we observe that nature extends her bounty to 
vegetables no farther than is sufficient for their nou- 
rishment and increase. To beasts she has given sense 
and motion, and a faculty which directs them to what 
is salutiferous, and to shun what is noxious to them. 
On man she has conferred a greater portion of her 
favour ; she has added reason to command his passions, 
to moderate some and to subdue others. In the fourth 
and highest degree are those beings, which are natu- 
rally wise and good, who, from the first moment of 
their existence, are possessed of right and unalterable 
reason, above the power of man to attain ; a reason 
perfect and consummate, such only as can be ascribed 
to a deity, that is, to the world. There is no institu- 
tion of things that is not designed for perfection. In a 
vine or in beasts we see nature, if not prevented, 
fulfils her destined course ; and as in painting, archi- 
tecture, and the other arts, there is a point of perfec- 
tion, so with more reason we must allow it in universal 
nature. Many external accidents may happen to par- 
ticular beings, which may impede their progress to 
perfection, but nothing can hinder universal nature, 
because she is the ruler and governor of all other 
causes. That, therefore, must be the fourth and most 
elevated degree, to which no other power can ap- 
proach. Nature is possessed of this, and since she 
presides over all things, and is subject to no impedi- 
ment, the world must necessarily be an intelligent, 
and even a wise being. 



BOOK II. 



OF THE GODS. 87 



How great is their ignorance who dispute the per- 
fection of that nature which encircles all things ; or, 
allowing it to be infinitely perfect, who deny it to be 
animated, reasonable, prudent, and wise ! Could it 
without these qualities be infinitely perfect? If it were 
like vegetables or brutes it would be of the lowest 
kind ; and if it were possessed of reason, and had not 
wisdom from the beginning, the world would be in a 
worse condition than man ; for man may grow wise, but 
the world, if it were void of wisdom through an infinite 
space of time past, could never acquire it. Thus it 
would be worse than man. But as that is absurd to 
imagine, the world must be esteemed wise from all 
eternity, and consequently a deity ; since there is 
nothing existing that is not defective except the uni- 
verse, which is fully complete and perfect in every part. 
Chrysippus very well says, that as the case is made 
for the buckler, and the scabbard for the sword, so all 
things except the universe were made for each other. 
The fruit of the earth for animals ; and animals for 
man, as the horse for carriage, the ox for the plough ; 
the dog for hunting and for a guard ; and man to con- 
template and imitate the world. Man is in nowise 
perfect, but a particle of perfection ; but the world, as 
it comprehends all, and as nothing exists that is not 
contained in it s , is entirely perfect. In what therefore 
can it be defective? It cannot want understanding 
and reason, the most desirable qualities. The same 
Chrysippus observes also, by similitudes, that every- 



■ It is evident that by mundus Cicero here means the universe ; for it 
would be absurd to say of this globe, nee est quicquam quod non insit in eo. 
The Stoic means by the world — all above us, in which the celestial bodies, as 
well as the terraqueous globe, are contained. 



88 OF THE NATURE book ii. 

thing in its kind, when arrived to maturity and per- 
fection, is superior to that which is not; as a horse to 
a colt, a dog to a puppy, and a man to a boy ; so what- 
ever is best must exist in some perfect and consummate 
being. Nothing is more perfect than the world, and 
nothing better than virtue. Virtue therefore is an 
attribute of the world. Human nature, imperfect as it 
is, is possessed of virtue ; with how much greater reason 
do we conceive it to be inherent in the world? If 
then the world hath virtue, it is wise also, and conse- 
quently a deity. 

The divinity of the world being clearly perceived, 
we must acknowledge it likewise in the stars, which 
are formed from the brightest and purest part of the 
ether, without a mixture of any other matter ; and, 
being altogether hot and transparent, we may justly 
say they have life, sense, and understanding. Clean- 
thes thinks it may be confirmed by the evidence of 
two of our senses, feeling and seeing, that they are 
fiery bodies; for the heat and brightness of the sun* 
far exceed any other fire, as it enlightens the whole 
universe ; and we perceive that it not only warms, but 
even often burns ; neither of which it could do, if it 
were not of a fiery quality. Since then, says he, the 
sun is a fiery body, and is nourished by the vapours of 
the ocean (for no fire can continue without some suste- 
nance), it must be either like fire, which we use to 
warm us and dress our food, or like that in the bodies 
of animals. The fire which the convenience of life 
requires, devours and consumes everything wherever 

' He is here attempting to prove the divinity of the stars, amongst which 
he reckons the sun, as appears by what he soon after says, jmmusqiie so/, 
qni astrorum obtinet principatum, etc. 



book ii. OF THE GODS. 89 

it invades ; on the contrary, the corporeal heat is 
salutary, and vivifies, preserves, cherishes, increases, 
and sustains all things, and is productive of sense ; 
therefore, says he, there can be no doubt which of 
these fires the sun is like, since it causes all things 
in their respective kinds to flourish and arrive to matu- 
rity; and as the fire of the sun is like that in animated 
beings, the sun itself must be animated, and the other 
stars also, which arise out of the celestial ardour that 
we call the sky or firmament. Some animals are gene- 
rated in the earth, some in water, and some in air; 
Aristotle" therefore thinks it ridiculous to imagine, 
that no animal is formed in that part of the universe, 
which is the most capable to produce them. The stars 
are situated in the etherial space, an element the most 
subtle, whose motion is continual, and whose force 
does not decay ; where every animated being must have 
the quickest sense and the swiftest motion. The stars 
therefore being there generated, it is a natural infe- 
rence to suppose them endued with such a degree of 
sense and understanding as places them in the rank of 
gods ; for it may be observed that they who inhabit 
countries of a pure clear air, have a quicker apprehen- 
sion, and a readier genius than those who live in a thick 
foggy climate x . It is thought likewise that the nature 
of the' diet has an effect on the mind y ; therefore it is 
probable that the stars are possessed of an excellent 

u The passage of Aristotle to which Cicero here refers is lost. 

x This has been a prevailing opinion in most ages and countries. Cicero, 
in his treatise De Fato, imputes the superior genius of the Athenians to the 
fineness of the air. 

y This opinion too is not without its favourers. One of the reasons 
assigned by the Pythagoreans for their abstinence from flesh, was, that it 
helped to quicken the understanding. 



90 OF THE NATURE book ii. 

understanding, because they are situated in the etherial 
part of the universe, and are nourished by the vapours 
of the earth and sea, which are purified by their long 
passage to the heavens. 

But the invariable order of the stars plainly mani- 
fests their sense and understanding; for all motion, 
which seems to be conducted with reason and harmony, 
supposes an intelligent principle, that does not act 
blindly, variously, or leave the guidance to chance. 
This constant course of the stars from all eternity 
follows the direction of right reason, not in nature 2 , 
nor in fortune (for fortune, being a friend to change, 
despises constancy), but they move spontaneously by 
their own sense and divinity. 

Aristotle is not unworthy commendation in observing, 
that all motion is natural, forced, or voluntary. He 



z Justus Lipsius is very large on the stoical doctrine of nature, provi- 
dence, fortune, etc. and Dr. Davis and president Bouhier have spared no 
pains towards clearing this passage ; but I think the context is sufficient to 
do it. By the constant course of the stars from all eternity, Balbus plainly 
means that motion is essential to them, and that they do not move by the 
common laws of gravitation, which he soon after calls moving by nature, or 
natural motion ; but they move, he says, spontaneously, impelled by no 
power but their own. The Stoic uses the word, natura sometimes in a 
general extended sense, as when he says, in quo sit totius naturcc pri)icipatus, 
by which he means the deity, in which the superior excellence of universal 
nature consists. Sometimes he uses it, as M. Bouhier observes, in a limited 
sense, as in the passage I am now upon, and elsewhere in the same book. 
Dr. Davis proposes necessitate™, instead oinaiuram, and well observes, that 
the words necessitas and furtuna are in other places opposed by Tully to 
reason; and M. Bouhier says that the word naturain has been certainly 
substituted for some other word. Though I think that Dr. Davis's change 
of naturam for necessitatem would make the passage less liable to ambiguity; 
yet, as the first word is in all the known copies, and as it may be reconciled 
to sense by comparing it with the context, it ought not to be rejected ; and 
Dr. Davis and M. Bouhier seem of the same opinion by keeping it in 
the lext. 



book ii. OF THE GODS. 91 

examined that of the sun, moon, and the other stars, 
whose motion heing orbicular could not be natural ; for 
by nature things are either carried downwards by their 
weight, or upwards by their lightness; nor can it be 
said they are moved against nature a ; for what hath 
more force than the stars ? It follows, therefore, that 
their motion must be voluntary. Whoever is convinced 
of this must discover great ignorance and impiety, if 
he denies the existence of the gods ; nor is the differ- 
ence great whether a man denies their existence, or 
deprives them of all design and action ; for whatever is 
inactive seems to me not to be b . Their existence, 
therefore, appears so plain, that I can scarcely think 
that man in his senses who denies it. 

It now remains that we consider what the gods are. 
Nothing is more difficult than to carry our thoughts 
from the directions of the eyes. This difficulty hath 
prevailed on the ignorant vulgar, and indeed on some 
philosophers not unlike them, who never think of the 
gods, but in the image of the human figure; the weak- 
ness of which opinion Cotta hath so well confuted, that 
I need not add my thoughts upon it. But as the pre- 
vious idea we have of the deity comprehends two 
things ; the one, that he is animated ; the other, that 
nothing in nature exceeds him ; I do not see anything 
more consistent with this idea than to attribute a mind 



a Here Balbus means again that universal nature, in quo sit totius nature 
principatus; therefore the stars, according to this doctrine, are eternally in- 
••dependent of every other nature. 

b This is a strange doctrine, that whatever is inactive does not exist. It 
is a self-evident truth, that whatever fills a part of space exists, whether it 
be active or inactive. 

c He means the Epicureans. 



92 OF THE NATURE book ii. 

and divinity to the world d , the most excellent of all 
beings. Epicurus may be as merry with this notion as 
he pleases; a man, not the best qualified for a joker, 
as not having the wit and sense of his country*. Let 
him say that a voluble round deity is to him incompre- 
hensible ; yet he shall never dissuade me from a prin- 
ciple which he himself approves ; for he is of the 
opinion there are gods, in allowing that there must be 
a nature most excellently perfect. It is certain that 
the world is most excellently perfect. Nor is it to be 
doubted that whatever has life, sense, reason, and un- 
derstanding, must excel that which is destitute of them. 
It follows then that the world has life, sense, reason, 
and understanding, and is consequently a deity. But 
this shall soon be made more manifest by the operation 
of this efficient cause. 

In the mean time, Velleius, let me entreat you not 
to betray the great want of learning in your sect. The 
cone, you say, the cylinder, and the pyramid, are more 
beautiful to you than the sphere. This is to have dif- 
ferent eyes from other men; but suppose they are 
more beautiful to the sight only, which does not appear 
to me, for I can see nothing more beautiful than that 
figure which contains all others, and which has no- 
thing in it rough, nothing offensive, nothing cut into 
angles, nothing broken, nothing swelling, and nothing 
hollow; yet as there are two forms f most esteemed, 

d Here the Stoic speaks too plain to be misunderstood. His world, his 
mundus, is the universe, and that universe is his great deity, in quo sit 
totins naturce principatus, in which the superior excellence of universal** 
nature consists. 

e Athens, the seat of learning- and politeness, of which Balbus will not 
allow Epicurus to be worthy. 

This is Pythagoras's doctrine, as appears in Diogenes Laertius. 



book ii. OF THE GODS. 93 

the globe in solids (for so the Greek word <rpa7pa t I 
think, should be construed), and the circle, or orb, in 
planes (in Greek kw<Ao$); and as they only have an 
exact similitude of parts, in which any extreme is 
equally distant from the centre, what can we imagine 
in nature to be more just and proper? But if you 
cannot see this, because you have never touched that 
learned dust g , would not physics inform you that this 
equality of motion and invariable order could not be 
preserved in any other figure? Nothing therefore can 
be more illiterate than to assert, as you do, that it is 
doubtful whether the world is round or not, because it 
may possibly be of another shape, and that there are 
innumerable worlds of different forms ; which Epicurus, 
if he had learned that two and two are equal to four, 
would not have said. But while he judges of what is 
best by his palate, he does not look up, as Ennius says, 
to the palace h of heaven. For there are two sorts of 
stars 1 ; one measuring their journey from east to west 
by immutable stages, never in the least varying from 



S He here alludes to mathematical and geometrical instruments. 

h Our grave Stoic is here a punster in the original. Dum palato, says he, 
qtdd sit optimum judicat, coeli palatum, lit ait Ennius, non suspexit. The 
word palatum was used by some of the Latin poets in the same sense with 
caelum; and we are told that the roof of the mouth was called palatum, 
from the resemblance, in form, that it bears to the roof of heaven. Balbus 
is more excusable for his pun, as he quotes it from old Ennius, than if it 
came directly from himself. 

4 Balbus here speaks of the fixed stars, and of the motions of the orbs of 
the planets. He here alludes, says M. Bouhier, to the different and diurnal 
motions of these stars; one sort from east to west, the other from one tropic 
to the other ; and this is the construction which our learned and great geo- 
metrician and astronomer Dr. Halley made of this passage, when 1 con- 
sulted him about it. I dwell the less in my notes on the astronomical and 
anatomical passages of our author, because of my Inquiry into the Astro- 
nomy and Anatomy of the Ancients at the end of this work. 



94 OF THE NATURE book ir. 

their usual course ; the other finishing a double revo- 
lution also in a constant regularity ; from whence we 
conceive the volubility of the world (which could not 
consist but in a globose form), and the rotundity of 
the stars. 

The sun, the chief of all the planets, is moved in 
such a manner, that it illuminates alternatively one part 
of the earth, while it leaves the other in darkness. 
The shadow of the earth interposing causes night ; 
and the intervals of night are equal to those of day. 
From the approaches and retreats of the sun arise the 
degrees of cold and heat. His annual circuit is in 
three hundred and sixty-five days, and near six hours k . 
At one time he bends his course to the north, at an- 
other to the south, which causes summer and winter, 
with the two seasons, one of which succeeds the de- 
cline of winter 1 , and the other that of summer. To 
these four changes of season we attribute the produc- 
tions both of sea and land. 

The moon completes the same course every month 
which the sun does in a year. The nearer she ap- 
proaches to the sun she yields the dimmer light, and 
when most remote she gives the fullest; nor are her 
figure and form only changed in her increase and in 
her wane, but her situation likewise, which is some- 



k This mensuration of the year into three hundred and sixty-five days 
and near six hours (by the odd hours and minutes of which, in every fourth 
year, the dies intercalaris, or leap-year, is made) could not but be known, 
Dr. Halley assured me, by Hipparchus, as appears from the remains of that 
great astronomer of the ancients. I am inclined to think, that Julius Cszsml 
had divided the year, according to what we call the Julian year, before 
Cicero wrote this book; for we see in the beginning of it how pathetically 
he speaks of Caesar's usurpation. 

1 Other authors have mentioned spring and autumn in this manner. 



book ii. OF THE GODS. 95 

times in the north and sometimes in the south. By 
this course she has a sort of summer and winter sol- 
stices ; and by her influence she contributes to the 
nourishment and increase of animated beings, and to 
the maturity of all vegetables. 

But most worthy our admiration is the motion of 
those five stars, falsely called wandering stars ; for they 
cannot be said to wander, which keep from all eternity 
their approaches and retreats, and have each their 
constant and established motions. What is yet more 
wonderful is, that sometimes they appear, and some- 
times disappear; sometimes advance towards the sun, 
and sometimes retreat; sometimes precede, and some- 
times follow it ; sometimes they move faster, sometimes 
slower; and sometimes they do not stir in the least, but 
for a while stand still™. From these unequal motions 
of the planets, mathematicians have called that the great 
year", in which the sun, moon, and five wandering 
stars, having finished their revolutions, are found in 
their original situation. In how long time this is ef- 
fected is much disputed, but it must be certain and 



m Philosophers agree that the planets never stand still, but only seem 
sometimes to move faster, sometimes slower, from their elliptical motion ; 
and the reason of their motions in curve lines is the attraction of the sun, or 
their gravitations towards it (call it which you please); and an oblique or 
sidelong impulse or motion. These two motions or tendencies, the one 
always endeavouring to carry them in a straight line from the circle they 
move in, and the other endeavouring to draw them in a straight line to the 
sun, makes that curve line they revolve in; by which they seem not to 
keep an equal motion, and sometimes to stand still. See Mr. Locke's 
[Elements of Natural Philosophy, in a collection of pieces written by him, 
and printed for K. Francklin in Covent Garden. 

n The words of Censorinus on this occasion are to the same effect. The 
opinions of philosophers concerning this great year are very different; but 
the institution of it is ascribed to Democritus. 



96 OF THE NATURE book ii. 

definitive . For the planet of Saturn (called by the 
Greeks $atW), which is farthest from the earth, finishes 
his course in almost thirty years ; and in his course 
there is something very singular ; sometimes going be- 
fore, sometimes behind ; one while lying hid in the 
night, then appearing in the morning, and ever per- 
forming the same motions in the same space of time, is 
for infinite ages regular in these courses. Beneath 
this planet, and nearer the earth, is Jupiter, called 
Qaedav, which passes the same orb of the twelve signs' 3 
in twelve years, and has the same variety in its course. 
Next to Jupiter is the planet Mars (in Greek . iivpoeiq), 
which finishes its revolution through the same orb q in 
twenty-four months, wanting six days, as I imagine. 
Below this is Mercury (called by the Greeks St/xjSw), 
which performs the same course in little less than a 
year, and is never farther distant from the sun than the 
space of one sign, whether it precedes or follows it. 
The lowest of these five planets, and nearest the earth, 
is that of Venus (called in Greek $«o-</> '/5o$). Before the 
rising of the sun it is called the morning-star, and after 
the setting the evening-star. It has the same revolu- 
tion through the zodiac, both as to latitude and longi- 
tude, with the other planets, in a year, and is never 
more than two r signs from the sun, whether it precedes 



Here he endeavours to prove the necessity of a certain and definitive 
conversion of the sun, moon, and five wandering stars, by which the great 
year is completed. 

p The zodiac. 

<i Though Mars is said to hold his orb in the zodiac with the rest, and tc^ 
finish his revolution through the same orb (that is, the zodiac) with the 
other two, yet Balbus means in a different line of the zodiac. 

r According to late observations it never goes but a sign and a half from 
the sun. 



book ii. OF THE GODS. 97 

or follows it. I cannot therefore coneeive that this 
constant course of the planets, this just agreement in 
such various motions, through all eternity, can be pre- 
served without a mind, reason, and consideration; and 
since we may perceive them in the stars, we cannot but 
place them in the rank of gods. 

Those which are called the fixed stars, have the 
same indications of reason and prudence. Their mo- 
tion is daily, regular, and constant. They do not move 
with the sky, nor have they any adhesion to the firma- 
ment, as they who are ignorant of physics affirm. For 
the sky, which is thin, transparent, and of an equal 
heat, does not seem by its nature to have power to 
whirl about the stars, or to be proper to contain them. 
The fixed stars therefore have their own sphere, se- 
parate and free from any conjunction with the sky s . 
Their perpetual courses, with that admirable and in- 
credible constancy, so plainly declare a divine power 
and mind to be in them, that he who cannot perceive 
their divinity must be incapable of perception. 

In the heavens therefore there is nothing fortuitous, 
unadvised, inconstant, or variable; all there is order, 
truth, reason, and constancy, without which all things 
are counterfeit, deceitful, and erroneous, and have their 
residence about the earth*, beneath the moon, the low- 
est of all the planets. He therefore must be void 
of all reason who will not allow it in the stars, whose 



8 The Stoic here distinguishes the zodiac (which is but a supposed, a 
given, circle), and the spaces in which the fixed stars are contained, by 
making one part sky, and the other not sky. 

* These, Dr. Davis says, are aerial fires, concerning which he jefers to 
the second book of Pliny. 

H 



98 OF THE NATURE book ii. 

order and constancy are so wonderful, and to which 
are owing the life and preservation of all beings. 

I think then I shall not deceive myself in maintaining 
this dispute upon the principle of Zeno, who went the 
farthest in his search after truth. He defines nature 
to be an artificial fire u , proceeding in a regular way to 
generation ; for he thinks, that to create and beget pro- 
perly belong to art, and that what may be wrought by 
the hands of our artificers is much more skilfully per- 
formed by nature ; that is, by this artificial fire, which 
is the master of all other arts. 

According to this manner of reasoning, every parti- 
cular nature is artificial, as it operates agreeably to a 
certain method peculiar to itself; but that universal 
nature, which embraces all things, is said by Zeno to 
be not only artificial, but absolutely the artificer, ever 
thinking and providing all things useful and proper; 
and as every particular nature owes its rise and in- 
crease to its own proper seed, so universal nature has 
all her motions voluntary, has affections and desires 
(by the Greeks called op^ai) productive of actions agree- 
able to them, like us who have sense and understand- 
ing to direct us. 

Such then is the intelligence of the universe ; for 
which reason it may be properly termed prudence, or 
providence (in Greek npovoia.), since her chiefest care 
and employment is to provide all things fit for its dura- 
tion, that it may want nothing; and, above all, that it 

u We find exactly the same stoical definition of nature in Diogenes 
Laertius : Jlvp texvikov 68$ f3adiZ,ov tig -y'tviGiv. This nature of Zeno's 
amounts to the superior excellence of the universe, which the Stoic before 
spoke of. 



book ii. OF THE GODS. 99 

may be adorned with all perfection of beauty and orna- 
ment. 

I have hitherto spoken of the universal world, and 
also of the stars ; from whence it is apparent that there 
is almost an infinite number of gods, always in action, 
but without labour or fatigue. For they are not com- 
posed of veins, nerves, and bones. Their food and 
drink are not such as cause humours, too gross or too 
subtile. Their bodies are not subject to the fear of falls 
or blows, or in danger of diseases from a weariness of 
limbs. Epicurus, to secure his gods from such acci- 
dents, has made them only sketches x of deities, void of 
action ; but our gods, of the most beautiful form, and 
situated in the purest region of the heavens, dispose 
and rule their course in such a manner, that they seem 
to contribute to the support and preservation of all 
beings. 

Besides these, there are many other natures which 
have with reason been deified by the wisest Grecians 
and by our ancestors, in consideration of the benefits 
derived from them ; for they were persuaded that 
whatever was of great utility to human kind must pro- 
ceed from divine goodness, and the name of the deity 
was applied to that which the deity produced, as when 



x This metaphor is taken from painters, who call that monogramnmm 
which has only the outlines without any colouring ; therefore monogrammi 
del may very properly be called sketches of deities, agreeably to Vel- 
leius the Epicurean's description of the gods in the first book; a similar 
description to which we have in Lucretius : 

Tenuis enim nutura deum, longeque remota 
Sensibus ab nostris, animi vlx mente videlui . 

H 2 



100 OF THE NATURE book ii. 

we call corn Ceres, and wine Bacchus ; whence that 
saying of Terence y , 

Without Ceres and Bacchus Venus starves. 

And that also in which there was any singular virtue 
was nominated a deity, as Faith 2 and Wisdom, which 
are placed amongst the divinities in the capitol; the 
last by .^Emilius Scaurus ; but Faith was consecrated 
before by Atilius Calatinus. You see the temple of 
Virtue and that of Honour repaired by M. Marcellus, 
erected formerly, in the Ligurian war, by Q. Maximus. 
Shall I mention those dedicated to Help, Safety, Con- 
cord, Liberty, and Victory, which have been called 
deities, because their efficacy has been so great as 
could not have proceeded but from some divine power? 
In like manner are the names of Cupid, Volupia*, and 
of Lubentine Venus consecrated, though they are 
things vicious and not natural b , whatever Velleius may 
think to the contrary, for they frequently stimulate 
nature in too violent a manner. 

Everything, then, from which any great utility pro- 

y In the Eunuch of Terence, 

Sine Cerere et Libera, friget Venus. 

T Fides; by which are understood confidence, trust, and the most exalted 
notion of honour. 

a Voluptas is the word used here by our author; but Pleasure was conse- 
crated under the name of Volupia, as Dr. Davis observes from Varro, Ma- 
crobius, and Austin. 

h He says they are not natural, because nature dictates what is right to 
us, and whatever is imprudent or prejudicial is contrary to the dictates of 
nature j agreeable to which are the words of Zeno in Diogenes Laertius, 
who there says, to live according to nature is to live according to virtue ; 
for nature tells us that what is virtuous is advantageous. 



book ii. OF THE GODS. 101 

ceecled, was deified ; and indeed the names I have just 
now mentioned are declaratory of the particular virtue 
of each deity. 

It has been a general custom likewise, that men who 
have done important service to the public should be 
exalted to heaven by fame and consent. Thus Her- 
cules, Castor and Pollux, iEsculapius, and Liber, 
became gods (I mean Liber c the son of Semele, and 
not him d whom our ancestors consecrated in such state 
and solemnity with Ceres and Libera; the difference in 
which may be seen in our mysteries 6 . But because 
the offsprings of our bodies are called liberi, children, 
therefore the offsprings of Ceres are called Liber and 
Libera; Libera { is the feminine, and Liber the mascu- 
line) ; thus likewise Romulus, or Quirinus, for they are 
thought to be the same, became a god. They are 
justly esteemed as deities, since their souls subsist and 
enjoy eternity, from whence they are perfect and im- 
mortal beings. 

But what has greatly contributed to the number of 
deities is the representing in human form divers parts 
of nature. This has supplied the poets with fables, 
and filled mankind with all sorts of superstition. Zeno 
hath treated on this subject ; but it is more largely 
explained by Cleanthes and Chrysippus. All Greece 
was of opinion that Ccelum was castrated by his son 
Saturn 8 , and that Saturn was chained by his son 

c Bacchus. d The son of Ceres. 

e The books of ceremonies. 

r This Libera is taken for Proserpine, who, with her brother Liber, was 
consecrated by the Romans ; all which are parts of nature in prosopopoeias; 
Cicero therefore makes Balbus distinguish between the person Liber, or 
Bacchus, and the liber which is a part of nature in prosopopaeia. 

s These allegorical fables are largely related by Hesiod in his Theogony. 



102 OF THE NATURE book 11. 

Jupiter. In these impious fables a physical, and not 
inelegant meaning is contained ; for they would denote 
that the celestial, most exalted, and etherial nature, 
that is, the fiery nature, which produces all things by 
itself, is destitute of that part of the body which is 
necessary for the act of generation by conjunction with 
another. By Saturn they mean that which compre- 
hends the course and revolution of times and seasons ; 
the Greek name for which deity implies as much, for 
he is called Kpwoq, which is the same with Xp6voq h , that 
is, a space of time. But he is called Saturn because 
he is filled with years 1 , and he is usually feigned to 
have devoured his children ; for time, ever insatiable, 
consumes the rolling years ; but, to restrain him from 
immoderate haste, Jupiter has confined him to the 
course of the stars, which are as chains to him. Jupi- 
ter (that is, juvans pater) signifies a helping father, 
whom, by changing the cases, we call Jove k , ajuvando. 
The poets call him father of gods and men 1 ; and our 
ancestors, the most good, the most great ; and as there 



h We have two English words in common use, and which are very sig- 
nificant, immediately derived from the Greek word Xpovog ; which are 
crone and crony ; the first is used to express a very aged person, the other 
an old acquaintance. 

1 Saturnus, quod saturetur annis. Our learned Walker on this passage 
prefers saturaretur on the authority of several ancient copies. Dr. Davis 
chooses faturetur, as Lactantius in his Div. Inst, did before him ; and when 
we are giving the derivation of the word Saturnus, I think saturetur is pre- 
ferable, as being nearer Saturnus than saturaretur. 

k Cicero means by converses casibus, varying the cases from the common 
rule of declension ; that is, by departing from the true grammatical rules of 
speech ; for if we would keep to it we should decline the word Jupiter 
Jupiteris in the second case, etc. Tertullian, in his Apology, says, Varro 
trecentos Joves, sive Jupiter es, indue ebat ; Varro introduced three thousand 
Joves, or Jupiters. 

1 Pater divumque hominumque. See page 70. 



book ii. OF THE GODS. 103 

is something more glorious in itself, and more agreeable 
to others, to be good, that is beneficent, than to be 
great, the title of most good precedes that of most 
great. This then is he whom Ennius means in the 
following passage, before quoted; 

Look up to the refulgent heav'n above, 
Which all men call unanimously Jove. 

which is plainer expressed than in this other passage m 
of the same poet ; 

On whose account I'll curse that flood of light, 
Whate'er it is above that shines so bright. 

Our augurs also mean the same when, for the thunder- 
ing and lightning heaven, they say the thundering and 
lightning Jove. Euripides, amongst many excellent 
things, has this 11 : 

The vast, th' expanded, boundless sky behold, 
See it with soft embrace the earth enfold ; 
This own the chief of deities above, 
And this acknowledge by the name of Jove. 

The air, according to the Stoics, which is between the 
sea and the heaven, is consecrated by the name of 



m The common reading is planiusque alio loco idem ; which, as Dr. Davis 
observes, is absurd ; therefore, in his note, he prefers planius quam alio loco 
idem, from two copies, in which sense I have translated it. 

n Sic hoc breviter is the general reading here ; but, as M. Bouhier very 
well observes, why briefly, when Euripides uses three verses to express that 
which Ennius did in one? The passage from Ennius is but one verse in 
the original, and from Euripides three, though they are more in my trans- 
lation. The learned Frenchman proposes sic hoc graviter ; but I think, with 
Dr. Davis, there is no occasion for either. 



104 OF THE NATURE book ii. 

Juno, and is called the sister and wife of Jove, because 
it resembles the sky, and is in close conjunction with it. 
They have made it feminine because there is nothing 
softer. But I believe it is called Juno, ajuvando, from 
helping. 

To make three separate kingdoms, by fable, there 
remained yet the water and the earth. The dominion 
of the sea is given therefore to Neptune, a brother, as 
he is called, of Jove; whose name Neptunus (as Por- 
tunus, a portu, from a port) is derived a nando from 
swimming, the first letters being a little changed. The 
sovereignty and power over the earth is the portion of 
a god, to whom we, as well as the Greeks, have given 
a name that denotes riches (in Latin Dis, in Greek 
TIWt»v), because all things arise from the earth and 
return to it. He forced away Proserpine (in Greek 
called I\€pa-e(povYj), by which the poets mean the seed of 
corn, from whence comes their fiction of Ceres, the 
mother of Proserpine, seeking for her daughter, who 
was hid from her. She is called Ceres, which is the 
same as Geres, a gerendis frugibus*, from bearing 



Cotta the Academic banters the Stoic, in the third book, for this deriva- 
tion of Neptune from nando, and well observes, that if he thinks Neptune 
comes from nando there is no name that may not be explained, and the 
derivation found, even by a single letter. Cotta likewise, in the same book, 
shows the difficulties attending a physical interpretation of the mythology 
of the ancients; and he endeavours to render their theology doubtful. It 
is certainly very easy to find out interpretations of most of the fables of the 
ancients, which may seem natural, though such meanings never were in- 
tended by the mycologists themselves. Lord Bacon has gone as great 
lengths in this as any of the moderns in his little treatise De Sapientia Vete- 
rum ; but what the sentiments of the ancients were on these fables can no- 
where be known so well as from the ancients themselves, where they have 
left us any remains of their opinions on these subjects. 

p From the verb gero, to bear. 



book ii. OF THE GODS. 105 

fruit, the first letter of the word being altered after the 
manner of the Greeks; for by them she is called Arj^rrjp, 
the same as r^-r^ q . Again, he (qui magna vorteret), 
who brings about mighty changes, is called Mavors ; 
and Minerva is so called because (minueret or minare- 
tar) she diminishes or menaces. And as the begin- 
nings 1 and endings of all things are of the greatest 
importance, therefore they would have their sacrifices 
to begin with Janus s . His name is derived ab eundo 
from passing ; from whence thorough passages are 
called jani; and the outward doors of common houses 
are called januce. The name of Vesta is, from the 
Greeks, the same with their "Ea-ria,. Her province is 
over altars and hearths ; and in the name of this god- 
dess, who is the keeper of all things within, prayers 
and sacrifices are concluded. The di penates, house- 
hold gods, have some affinity with this power, and are 
so called either from penus, all kind of human pro- 
visions, or because penitus incident, they reside within, 
from which, by the poets, they are called penetrates 
also. Apollo, a Greek name, is called Sol, the sun ; 
and Diana, Luna the moon. The sun is so named 
either because he is solus, alone, so eminent above all 
the stars ; or because he obscures all the stars and 
appears alone, as soon as he rises. Luna, the moon, 
is so called a lucendo, from shining ; she bears the 
name also of Lucina ; and as in Greece the women in 



i That is, mother Earth. 

r We have a saying amongst us to the same effect, He that hath well 
begun hath half done ; and the end crowns the work. 

s Janus is said to be the first who erected temples in Italy, and instituted 
religious rites, and from whom the first month in the Roman calendar is 
derived. 



106 OF THE NATURE book if. 

labour invoke Diana Lucifera, so here they invoke 
Juno Lucina. She is likewise called Diana omnivaga, 
not avenando, from hunting, but because she is 
reckoned one of the seven stars that seem to wander 1 . 
She is called Diana, because she makes a kind of day 
of the night u ; and presides over births, because the 
delivery is effected sometimes in seven or at most in 
nine courses of the moon ; which, because they make 
mensa spatia, measured spaces, are called menses, 
months. This occasioned a pleasant observation of 
Timasus (as he has many). Having said in his history 
that the same night in which Alexander was born the 
temple of Diana at Ephesus was burned down, he 
adds, it is not in the least to be wondered at, because 
Diana, being willing to assist at the labour of Olym- 
pias x , was absent from home. But to this goddess, 
because ad res omnes veniret, she has an influence upon 
all things, we have given the appellation of Venus y ; 
from whom the word venustas, beauty, is rather derived 
than Venus from venustas. 

Do you observe therefore that from things natural, 
and which were wisely and advantageously discovered, 
have arisen fictious and imaginary deities ; which have 
been the foundation of false opinions, pernicious errors, 
and wretched superstitions? For we know the different 
forms of the gods, their ages, apparel, ornaments, their 
pedigrees, marriages, relations, and everything belong- 



1 Stella vagantes. 

u Noctu quasi diem efficeret. 

x Olympias was the mother of Alexander. 

y Venus is here said to be one of the names of Diana, because ad res 
omnes veniret ; but she is not supposed to be the same as the mother of 
Cupid. 



book ii. OF THE GODS. 107 

ing to them, are reduced to a level with human weak- 
ness ; for they are represented with our passions ; with 
lust, sorrow, and anger; and, according to fable, they 
have had wars and combats, not only, as Homer re- 
lates, when they have interested themselves in two 
different armies, but when they have fought battles in 
their own defence, against the Titans and giants. 
These stories, of the greatest weakness and levity, are 
related and believed with the most implicit folly. 

But, rejecting these fables with contempt, a deity is 
diffused in every part of nature ; in earth under the 
name of Ceres ; in the sea under the name of Neptune ; 
in other parts under other names. Yet whatever they 
are, and whatever name custom hath given them, we 
ought to worship and adore them. The best, the 
chastest, the most sacred and pious worship of the 
gods is to reverence them always with a pure, perfect, 
and unpolluted mind and voice ; for our ancestors, as 
well as the philosophers, have separated superstition 
from religion. They, who prayed whole days and 
sacrificed, that their children might survive them (ut 
superstites essent), were called superstitious ; which 
word became afterwards more general. But they who 
diligently perused and, as we may say, read or practised 
over again 2 all the duties relating to the worship of the 
gods were called religiosi, religious, from relegendo, 
reading over again, or practising ; as elegantes, elegant, 
ex eligendo, from choosing, or making a good choice; 
diligentes, diligent, ex diligendo, from attending on 
what we love ; intelligentes, intelligent, from under- 



z The word is relegerent ; from which Balbus says they were called 
religiosi. 



108 OF THE NATURE book ii. 

standing; for the signification is derived in the same 
manner. Thus are the words superstitious and religious 
understood ; the one being a term of reproach, the 
other of commendation. I think I have now suf- 
ficiently demonstrated that there are gods, and what 
they are. 

I am now to show that the world is governed by the 
providence of the gods. This is an important point 
which you Academics endeavour to confound ; and, 
indeed, the whole contest is with you Cotta ; for your 
sect, Velleius, know as little of this as of anything else. 
You read and have a taste only for your own books, 
and condemn all others without examination. For 
instance, when you mentioned yesterday a that pro- 
phetic old dame lipoma, Providence, invented by the 
Stoics, you were led into that error by imagining provi- 
dence was made by them to be a singular deity, that 
governs the whole universe ; whereas it is only spoken 
in a short manner; as when it is said the common- 
wealth of Athens is governed by the council, it is 
meant of the areopagus b ; so when we say the world is 
governed by providence it is meant of the gods. To 
express ourselves therefore more fully and clearly, we 
say the world is governed by the providence of the 
gods. 

Be not therefore lavish of your railleries, which your 
sect has little of to spare, in ridiculing us ; and truly, 
if I may advise you, do not attempt it. It does not 



a Here is a mistake, as FulviusUrsinus observes; for the discourse seems 
to be continued in one day, as appears from the beginning of this book. 
This may be an inadvertency of Cicero. 

h The senate of the Athens was so called from the words "Aptiog Ilayoc, 
the village, some say the hill, of Mars. 



book ii. OF THE GODS. 109 

become you ; it is not your talent, nor is it in your 
power. This is not applied to you in particular, who 
have the education and politeness of a Roman, but to 
all your sect in general, and especially to your leader ; 
a man unpolished, illiterate, insulting, without wit, 
without reputation, without elegance. 

I assert then, that the universe, with all its parts, 
was originally constituted, and has, without any dis- 
continuance, been ever governed by the providence of 
the gods. This argument we Stoics commonly divide 
into three parts. The first is, that the existence of 
the gods being once known, it must follow that the 
world is governed by their wisdom. The second, that 
as everything is under the direction of an intelligent 
nature, which has produced that beautiful order in 
the world, it is evident that it is formed from animating 
principles. The third is deduced from those glorious 
works which we behold in the heavens and the earth. 

First then, we must either deny the existence of the 
gods (as Democritus and Epicurus by their doctrine of 
images in some sort do), or, if we acknowledge there 
are gods, we must believe they are employed, and that 
in something excellent ; nothing is so excellent as the 
administration of the universe ; it is therefore governed 
by the wisdom of the gods. Otherwise we must imagine 
there is some cause superior to the deity, whether it be 
a nature inanimate, or a necessity agitated by a mighty 
force, that produces those beautiful works which we 
behold. The nature of the gods would then be neither 
supreme nor excellent, if you subject it to that necessity, 
or to that nature, by which you would make the heaven, 

c Epicurus. 



110 OF THE NATURE book ii. 

the earth, and the seas to be governed. But there is 
nothing superior to the deity ; the world therefore 
must be governed by him; consequently the deity is 
under no obedience or subjection to any nature, but 
rules all nature himself. 

In effect, if we allow the gods have understanding, 
we allow also their providence, which regards the most 
important things; for, can they be ignorant of those 
important things, and how they are to be conducted 
and preserved, or do they want power to sustain and 
direct them ? Ignorance is inconsistent with the nature 
of the gods, and imbecility is repugnant to their ma- 
jesty. From whence it follows, as we assert, that the 
world is governed by the providence of the gods. 

But supposing what is certain, that there are gods, 
they must be animated, and not only animated, but 
reasonable, united as we may say in a civil agreement 
and society, and governing together one universe, as a 
republic or city. Thus the same reason, the same 
verity, the same law, which ordains good and prohibits 
evil, is in the gods as in men. From them consequently 
we have prudence and understanding ; for which reason 
our ancestors erected temples to the Mind, Faith, 
Virtue, and Concord. Shall we not then allow the 
gods to have these perfections, since we worship the 
sacred and august images of them? But if under- 
standing, faith, virtue, and concord, reside in human 
kind, how could they come on earth unless from 
heaven ? And if we are possessed of wisdom, reason, 
and prudence, the gods must have the same qualities 
in a "greater degree ; and not only have them, but 
employ them in the best and greatest works ; the 
universe is the best and greatest work ; therefore it 



book ii. OF THE GODS. Ill 

must be governed by the wisdom and providence of 
the gods. 

Lastly, as we have sufficiently shown that those 
glorious and luminous bodies we behold are deities, I 
mean the sun, the moon, the fixed and wandering stars, 
the firmament, and the world itself, as also those things 
which have any singular virtue, and are of great utility 
to human kind, it follows that all things are governed 
by providence and a divine mind. But enough has 
been said on the first part. 

It is now incumbent on me to prove that all things 
are subjected to nature, and most beautifully directed 
by her. But first, it is proper to explain precisely 
what that nature is, in order to the more easy under- 
standing what I would demonstrate. 

Some think that nature is a certain irrational power 
exciting in bodies the necessary motions ; others, that 
it is an intelligent power, acting by order and method, 
designing some end in every cause, and always aiming 
at that end ; whose works express such skill, as no art, 
no hand, can imitate; for, they say, such is the virtue 
of its seed, that, however small it is, if it falls into a 
place proper for its reception, and meets with matter 
conducive to its nourishment and increase, it forms 
and produces everything in its respective kind, either 
vegetables, which receive their nourishment from their 
roots, or animals, endowed with motion, sense, appetite, 
and abilities to beget their likeness. Some apply the 
word nature to everything ; as Epicurus, who acknow- 
ledges no cause, but atoms, a void, and their accidents. 
But when we d say that nature forms and governs the 

J The Stoics. 



112 OF THE NATURE book n. 

world, we do not apply it to a clod of earth, or a piece 
of stone, or anything of that sort, whose parts have not 
the necessary cohesion 6 ; but to a tree, an animal, in 
which there is not the appearance of chance, but of 
order, and a resemblance of art. 

But if the art of nature gives life and increase to 
vegetables, without doubt it supports the earth itself; 
for, being impregnated with seeds, she produces every 
kind of vegetable, and embracing their roots, she 
nourishes and increases them ; while in her turn she 
receives her nourishment from the other elements, and, 
by her exhalations, gives proper sustenance to the air, 
the sky, and all the superior bodies. 

If nature gives vigour and support to the earth, by 
the same reason she has an influence over the rest of 
the world ; for as the earth gives nourishment to 
vegetables, so the air is the preservation of animals. 
The air sees with us, hears with us, and utters sounds 
with us ; without it there would be no seeing, hearing, 
or sounding. It even moves with us ; for wherever we 
go, whatever motion we make, it seems to retire and 
give place to us. 

That which inclines to the centre, that which rises 
from it to the surface, and that which rolls about the 
centre, constitute the universal world, and make one 
entire nature; and as there are four sorts of bodies, the 
continuance of nature is caused by their reciprocal 



e By nulla coluerendi natura, if it is the right, as it is the common read- 
ing, Cicero must mean the same as by nulla crescendi naturu or coalescendi, 
either of which Lambinus proposes ; for, as the same learned critic well 
observes, is there not a cohesion of parts in a clod or in a piece of stone 1 
Our learned Walker proposes sola cohcerendi natura, which mends the sense 
very much ; and 1 wish he had the authority of any copy for it. 



bookii. OF THE GODS. 113 

changes ; for the water arises from the earth, the air 
from the water, and the fire from the air ; and back- 
wards again, the air from fire, the water from the air, 
and from the water the earth, the lowest of the four 
elements, of which all beings are formed. Thus by 
their continual motions backwards and forwards, up- 
wards and downwards, the conjunction of the several 
parts of the universe is preserved ; an union which, in 
the beauty which we now behold it, must be sempi- 
ternal, or at least of a very long duration, and almost 
for an infinite space of time ; and, whichever it is, the 
universe must of consequence be governed by nature. 
For what art of war, or of navigation, and, to instance 
the produce of nature, what vine, what tree, what ani- 
mated form and conformation of their members, give us 
so great an indication of skill as appears in the uni- 
verse ? Therefore, we must either deny that there is the 
least trace of an intelligent nature, or acknowledge that 
the world is governed by it. 

But since the universe contains all particular beings 
as well as their seeds, can we say it is not itself 
governed by nature ? That would be the same as saying 
that the teeth and the beard of man are the work qf 
nature, but that the man himself is not. Thus the effect 
would be understood to be greater than the cause. 
Now the universe sows, as I may say, plants, produces, 
raises, nourishes, and preserves, what nature admi- 
nisters, as members and parts of itself. If nature 
therefore governs them, she must also govern the 
universe. 

Lastly, in nature's administration there is nothing 
faulty. She produced the best out of those elements, 
which existed. Let any one show how it could have 

i 



114 OF THE NATURE book n. 

been better. But that will never be ; and whoever 
attempts to mend it will either make it worse or aim at 
impossibilities. 

But if all the parts of the universe are so constituted 
that nothing could be better for use or beauty, let us 
consider whether it be the effect of chance, or whether, 
in such a state, they could possibly cohere, but by the 
direction of wisdom and divine providence. 

Nature therefore cannot be void of reason, if art can 
bring nothing to perfection without it, and if the works 
of nature exceed those of art. When you view an 
image or a picture, you imagine it is wrought by art ; 
.when you behold afar off a ship under sail, you judge 
it <is steered by reason and art ; when you see a dial 
or water-clock f , you believe the hours are showed 
by art, and not by chance ; can you then imagine that 
the universe, which contains all arts and the artificers, 
can be void of reason, void of understanding ? 

If that sphere, lately made by our friend Posidonius, 
which shows the course of the sun, moon, and five 
wandering stars, as it is every day and night per- 
formed, was carried into Scythia or Britain ; who, in 
those barbarous countries, would doubt that reason 
presided in that work? yet these people 8 doubt 
whether the universe, from whence all things arise and 
are made, is not the effect of chance, or some ne- 
cessity, rather than the work of reason and a divine 
mind. According to them, Archimedes' 1 shows more 



f Nascia Scipio, the censor, is said to have been the first who made a 
water-clock in Rome. 

S The Epicureans. 

h Archimedes's sphere is mentioned by many of the ancients. It was 
made of glass, and represented the motions of the sun, moon, and other 



book ii. OF THE GODS. 115 

knowledge in representing the motions of the celestial 
globe, than nature does in causing them, though the 
copy is so infinitely beneath the original. 

The shepherd in Attius 1 , who had never seen a ship, 
when he perceived from a mountain afar off* the divine 
vessel of the Argonauts, surprised and frighted at this 
new object, expressed himself in this manner: 

What horrid bulk is that before my eyes, 
Which o'er the deep with noise aud vigour flies ! 
It turns the whirlpools up its force so strong, 
And drives the billows as it rolls along. 
The ocean's violence it fiercely braves ; 
Runs furious on, and throws about the waves. 
Swiftly impetuous in its course, and loud, 
Like the dire bursting of a show'ry cloud ; 
Or like a rock, forced by the winds and rain, 
Now whirl'd aloft, then plung'd into the main. 
But hold, perhaps the Earth and Neptune jar, 
And fiercely wage an elemental war ; 
Or Triton with his trident has o'erthrown 
His den, and loosen'd from the roots the stone ; 
The rocky fragment from the bottom torn, 
Is lifted up, and on the surface borne. 

At first he is in suspense at the sight of this unknown 
object ; but on seeing the young mariners, and hearing 
their singing, he says, 

Like sportive dolphins with their snouts they roar k ; 

planets. See the Inquiry into the Astronomy of the Ancients, at the end of 
this work. 

1 An old Latin poet commended by Quintilian for the gravity of his 
sense and loftiness of style. 

k The shepherd is here supposed to take the stem or beak of the ship for 
the mouth, from which the roaring voices of the sailors came. Rostrum is 
here a lucky word to put in the mouth of one who never saw a ship before, 
as it is used for the beak of a bird, the snout of a beast or fish, and for the 
«tem of a ship. 

I 2 



11G OF THE NATURE book 11. 

And afterwards goes on, 

Loud in my ears methinks their voices ring, 
As if I heard the god Sylvanus sing. 

As at first view the shepherd thinks he sees some- 
thing inanimate and insensible, but afterwards, upon 
stronger marks, begins to figure to himself what it is ; 
so philosophers, if they are surprised at first at the 
sight of the universe, ought, when they have consi- 
dered the regular, uniform, and immutable motions of 
it, to conceive that there is some being, that is not 
only an inhabiter in this celestial and divine mansion, 
but a ruler and a governor, as architect of this mighty 
fabric. 

Now, in my opinion, they l do not seem to think that 
the heavens and earth afford anything marvellous. 
The earth is situated in the middle part of the uni- 
verse, and is surrounded on all sides by the air which 
we breathe (the word is originally Greek" 1 , but by 
our frequent use of it is now latinised). The air is 
encompassed by the boundless cether (sky), which con- 
sists of the fires above. This word we borrow also ; for 
we use cether in Latin as well as aer ; though Pacuvius 
thus expresses it : 

This of which I speak, 



In Latin's ccelum, (Ether called in Greek. 

A Grecian says this : indeed he speaks in Latin, but 
like a Greek ; for, as he says elsewhere, 

His speech discovers him a Grecian born. 



1 The Epicureans. 

m Greek, arjp' Latin, aer. 



book ii. OF THE GODS. 117 

But to return. In the sky innumerable fiery stars 
exist, of which the sun is the chief, enlightening all 
with his refulgent splendour, and is by many degrees 
larger than the whole earth ; and this multitude of vast 
fires are so far from hurting the earth and things terres- 
trial, that they are of benefit to them ; whereas if they 
were moved from their stations, we should inevitably 
be burned, through the want of a proper moderation 
and temperature of heat. 

Can I but wonder here that any one can persuade 
himself, that certain solid and individual bodies move 
by their natural force and gravitation, and that a world 
so beautifully adorned was made by their fortuitous 
concourse ? He who believes this possible may as well 
believe, that if a great quantity of the one-and-twenty 
letters 11 , composed either of gold or any other matter. 



n M. Bouhier is of opinion, that the Roman alphabet before Cicero's time 
consisted of these sixteen letters only, A, B, C, D, E, F, I, K, L, M, N, O, 
P, R, S, T, aod that in Cicero's time these five were added, G, Q, U, X, 
and Z ; and he refers us to his Dissertation on the old Greek and Latin 
Letters; but I am certain that the learned Frenchman is in error. How 
could he imagine that G was added to the Latin alphabet in Cicero's time, 
■when Cicero himself here quotes two verses from Pacuvius the tragic poet, 
both which have the letter G in them ; and Pacuvius flourished before 
Cicero? And how could he suppose Q or U to be added in Cicero's time, 
when they so often occur in Plautus and Terence, who wrote long before 
him. Some words, indeed, which afterwards began with Q, were before 
spelled with C, as cotidie and some others. X and Z were in the Latin 
alphabet before Cicero. H, which M. Bouhier does not make one of the 
sixteen, but calls it an aspirate, was certainly used before; for Catullus, 
who was contemporary with Tully, banters an affected person for being so 
attached to the spelling and pronunciation of his ancestors as to say Imisi- 
dias instead of insidlas. The alphabet in Cicero's time had not, I believe, 
K, W, or Y, in it ; and W was never received into the Latin alphabet; 
but we find some words in most editions of Cicero with Y in them, as in 
this book Cynosura, Arctophylax, Procyon, etc. the names of certain stars ; 
yet I am inclined to think that Cicero wrote Cunosura, Arctophulaxj 



118 OF THE NATURE book it. 

were thrown upon the ground, they would fall into 
such order as legibly to form the annals of Ennius. I 
doubt whether fortune could make a single verse of 
them . How therefore can these people assert, that 
the world was made by the fortuitous concourse of 
atoms, which have no colour, no quality, no sense? or 
that there are innumerable worlds, some rising and 
some perishing in every point of time ? But if a con- 
course of atoms can make a world, why not a porch, a 
temple ; a house, a city ; which are works of less labour 
and difficulty? But really they prate so inconsider- 
ately concerning the universe, that they seem to me 
never to have contemplated the wonderful magnificence 
of the heavens, which comes next under my con- 
sideration. 

Aristotle p very well observes ; " if there were men 
whose habitations had been always under ground, in 
great and commodious houses, adorned with statues 
and pictures, furnished with everything which they 
who are reputed happy abound with ; and if, without 
stirring from thence, they should be informed of a 
certain divine power and majesty, and after some time 
the earth should open and they should quit their dark 
abode to come to us, where they should immediately 
behold the earth, the seas, the heavens; should con- 
sider the vast extent of the clouds and force of the 



Procuon, after Aratus, from whom he translated some verses, in which 
these names are Kvvoaovpa, 'Ap%ro0vXa?, and Iipoxvo)v. In my opinion 
C was pronounced as K, and Ch was used as the Greek X. 

This idea of Cicero concerning the forming letters in metal is a clue 
that might lead to the present practice of printing, and may possibly have 
given the hint to the inventor or reviver of that art in Europe. 

P The treatise of Aristotle from whence this is taken is lost. 



book ii. OF THE GODS. 119 

winds ; should see the sun, and observe his grandeur 
and beauty, and perceive that day is occasioned by the 
diffusion of his light through the sky ; and when night 
has obscured the earth, they should contemplate the 
heavens bespangled and adorned with stars ; the sur- 
prising variety of the moon in her increase and wane ; 
the rising and setting of all the stars, and the inviolable 
regularity of their courses ; when," says he, " they 
should see these things, they would undoubtedly con- 
clude that there are gods, and that these are their 
mighty works." Thus far Aristotle. Let us imagine 
also as great darkness as was formerly occasioned by 
the irruption of the fires of mount .ZEtna, which are 
said to have obscured the adjacent countries for two 
days, that one man could not know another ; but on the 
third, when the sun appeared, they seemed to be risen 
from the dead. Now, if we should be suddenly brought 
from a state of eternal darkness to see the light, how 
beautiful would the heavens seem ! But, being daily 
accustomed to behold it, our minds are not affected, 
nor troubled to search into the principles of what is 
always in view, as if the novelty, rather than the im- 
portance of things, ought to excite our curiosity. 

Is he worthy to be called a man, who attributes to 
chance, not to an intelligent cause, the constant mo- 
tions of the heavens, the regular courses of the stars, 
the agreeable proportion and connection of all things, 
conducted with so much reason, that our reason itself 
is lost in the inquiry ? When we see machines move 
artificially, as a sphere, a clock, or the like, do we 
doubt whether they are the productions of reason ? 
And when we behold the heavens moving with a pro- 
digious celerity, and causing an annual succession of 



120 OF THE NATURE book ii. 

the different seasons of the year, which vivify and pre- 
serve all things, can we doubt that this world is di- 
rected, I will not say only by reason, but by reason 
excellent and divine ? For, in short, there is no need 
of seeking after proofs ; we need only with speculation 
contemplate the beauty of those things which, we assert, 
are appointed by divine providence. 

First, let us examine the earth, whose situation 
is in the middle of the universe q , solid, round, and 
conglobular by its natural tendency ; clothed with 
flowers, herbs, trees, and fruits; the whole in multi- 
tudes incredible; and with a variety suitable to every 
taste : let us consider the ever cool and running 
springs, the clear waters of the rivers, the verdure of 
their banks, the hollow depths of caves, the cragginess 
of rocks, the heights of impending mountains, and the 
spaciousness of plains, the hidden veins of gold and 
silver, and the infinite quarries of marble. What and 
how various are the kinds of animals, tame or wild ? 
The flights and notes of birds ? How do the beasts 
live in the fields and in the forests? What shall I say 
of men who, being appointed, as we may say, to culti- 
vate the earth, do not suffer its fertility to be choked 
with weeds, nor the ferocity of beasts to make it deso- 
late ; who, by the houses and cities which they build, 
adorn the fields, the isles, and the shores ? If we could 
view these objects with the naked eye, as we can by 
the contemplation of the mind, nobody at such a sight 
would doubt there was a divine intelligence. 

i To the universe the Stoics certainly annexed the idea of a limited space, 
otherwise they could not have talked of a middle ; for there can be no 
middle but of a limited space; infinite space can have no middle, there 
being infinite extension from every part. 



book ii. OF THE GODS. 121 

But how beautiful is the sea ! How pleasant to see 
the extent of it ! What a multitude and variety of 
islands ! How delightful are the coasts ! What num- 
bers and what diversity of inhabitants does it contain ; 
some within the bosom of it, some floating on the sur- 
face, and others by their shells cleaving to the rocks ! 
While the sea itself, approaching to the land, so 
resembles its shores that those two elements appear to 
be but one. 

Next above the sea is the air, diversified by day and 
night ; when rarified it possesses the higher region ; 
when condensed it turns into clouds* and, with the 
waters which it gathers, it enriches the earth by the 
rain. Its agitation produces the winds. It causes 
heat and cold according to the different seasons. It 
supports birds in their flight; and by respiration it 
nourishes and preserves all animated beings. 

There now remains to be mentioned the heaven ; a 
region the farthest from our abodes, which surrounds 
and contains all things. It is likewise called cetJier, or 
sky, the extreme bounds and limits of the universe, in 
which the stars perform their appointed courses in a 
most wonderful manner. 

Amongst the stars, the sun, whose magnitude far 
surpasses the earth, makes his revolution round it ; 
and by his rising and setting causes day and night ; 
sometimes coming near towards the earth, and some- 
times going from it ; he every year makes two contrary 
reversions r from the extreme part ; in his retreat the 

r These two contrary reversions are from the tropics of Cancer and Capri- 
corn. They are the extreme bounds of the sun's course. The reader must 
observe, that the astronomical parts of this book are introduced by the Stoic 
as proofs of design and reason in the universe; and, notwithstanding the 



122 OF THE NATURE book it. 

earth seems locked up in sadness ; in his return it ap- 
pears exhilarated with the heavens. 

The moon, which, as mathematicians s demonstrate, 
is bigger than half the earth, makes her revolutions 
through the same spaces * as the sun ; from which she 
borrows the whole light which she communicates to 
the earth, and has those various changes in her appear- 
ance. When she is found under the sun and opposite 
to it, the brightness of her rays are lost; but when the 
earth directly interposes between the moon and sun, 
the moon is totally eclipsed. 

The other wandering stars have their courses round 
the earth in the same spaces u , and rise and set in the 
same manner ; their motions are sometimes quick, 
sometimes slow, and often they stand still x . There is 
nothing more wonderful, nothing more beautiful. 

There is a vast number y of fixed stars, distinguished 



errors in his planetary system, his intent is well answered, because all he 
means is, that the regular motions of the heavenly bodies, and their depen- 
dencies, are demonstrations of a divine mind. The inference proposed to 
be drawn from his astronomical observations is as just as if his system was, 
in every part, unexceptionably right ; the same may be said of his anatomical 
observations. 

s Balbus says that the moon is bigger than half the earth, as mathema- 
ticians show. Though this was a prevailing error among some Stoics, the 
reader is not to suppose that there were no astronomers who knew better in 
that age. According to Ptolemey, whose system was well known in Tully's 
time, the moon is thirty times less than the earth; and later observations 
make it still less. Tycho Brahe makes it forty-two times less; some ob- 
servers since him forty-three, and others forty-five. 

I In the zodiac. 

II Ibid. 

x See p. 94, 95, and the note. 

y Astronomers have differed about the number of fixed stars. They are 
called fixed stars because their distances are always the same ; they are in- 
variable. The complelest catalogue of them is to be made out of Flam- 



book ii. OF THE GODS. 123 

by the names of certain figures, to which we find they 
have some resemblance. 

I will here, says Balbus, looking at me, make use of 
the verses which, when you were young, you translated 
from Aratus 53 , and which, because they are in Latin, 
gave me so much delight that I have many of them still 
in my memory. 

As then we daily see, without any change or vari- 
ation, 

the rest a 



Swiftly pursue the course to which they're bound ; 
And with the heav'ns the days and nights go round ; 

the contemplation of which, to a mind desirous of ob- 
serving the constancy of nature, is inexhaustible. 

The extreme top of either point is call'd 
The pole b . 

About this the two "Apxroi are turned, which never set ; 

Of these, the Greeks one Cynosura call, 
The other Helice c . 

steed's Historia Ccelestis, and Dr. Halley's Observations on the Southern 
Constellations. 

z These verses of Tully are a translation from a Greek poem of Aratus, 
called the Phenomena. So complete a catalogue of the fixed stars is not 
to be expected from Aratus as from Mr. Flamsteed and Dr. Halley. There 
is no necessity for Balbus to mention all the constellations here which were 
known in Tully's time, because a part of them is sufficient to answer the 
end of the Stoic, whose endeavour is to show the impossibility of these 
bodies obeying the laws of motion without reason. See farther in the In- 
quiry into the Astronomy of the Ancients. 

a The fixed stars. 

b The arctic and antarctic poles. 

c The two Arctoi are northern constellations. Cynosura is what we call 
the Lesser Bear; Helice the Greater Bear; in Latin Ursa Minor and Ursa 
Major. 



124 OF THE NATURE book ii. 

The brightest stars d indeed of Helice are discernible 
all night, 

Which are by us Septentriones call'd. 

Cynosura moves about the same pole, with a like num- 
ber of stars, and ranged in the same order ; 

This e the Phoenicians choose to make their guide, 
When on the ocean in the night they ride. 
Adorn 'd with stars of more refulgent light, 
The other f shines, and first appears at night, 
Though this be small, sailors its use have found ; 
More inward is its course, and short its round. 

The aspect of those stars is the more admirable, be- 
cause 

The Dragon grim betwixt them bends his way, 
As through the winding banks the currents stray, 
And up and down in sinuous bendings rolls s. 

His whole form is excellent ; but the shape of his 
head and the ardour of his eyes are most remarkable. 

Various the stars, which deck his glitt'ring head ; 
His temples are with double fulgour spread ; 
From his fierce eyes two fervid lights afar 
Flash, and his chin shines with one radiant star; 
Bow'd is his head ; and his round neck he bends, 
And to the tail of Helice h extends. 



* These stars in the Greater Bear are vulgarly called the seven stars, or 
the northern wain ; by the Latins Septentriones. 

e The Lesser Bear. 

f The Greater Bear. 

s Exactly agreeable to this and the following description of the Dragon, 
is the same northern constellation described in the map by Flamsteed in 
his Atlas Ccelestis; and all the figures here described by Aratus nearly 
agree with the maps of the same constellations in the Atlas Ccelestis, 
though they are not all placed precisely alike. 

h The tail of the Greater Bear. 



book ii. OF THE GODS. 125 

The rest of the Dragon's body we i see at every hour in 

the night ; 

Here k suddenly the head a little hides 
Itself, where all its parts, which are in sight, 
And those unseen, in the same place unite. 

near to this head 

Is placed the figure of a man that moves 
Weary and sad, 

which the Greeks 

Engonasis do call, because he's borne 1 
About with bended knee. Near him is placed 
The crown with a refulgent lustre graced. 

This, indeed, is at his back ; but Anguitenens, the 
Snakeholder, is near his head m ; 



1 That is in Macedon, where Aratus lived. 

k The true interpretation of this passage is as follows, and agreeable to 
the construction which Dr. Davis and other learned men give. Here in 
Maeedon, says Aratus, the head of the Dragon does not entirely irnmerge 
itself in the ocean, but only touches the superficies of it. By ortus and 
obitus I doubt not but Cicero meant, agreeable to Aratus, those parts which 
arise to view, and those which are removed from sight. These verses in 
the original Greek, and in the translations, are unintelligible to those who 
are entirely unacquainted with the figures and places of the constellations ; 
nor are they easily to be understood by astronomers, without considering 
the author as writing in Macedon, and allowing for the opinion of the 
ancients, that the ocean is the horizon of the world. 

1 These are two northern constellations. Engonasis (in some catalogues 
called Hercules), because he is figured kneeling lv yovaoiv, on his knee ; 
'Evyovaaiv xaXkovg', as Aratus says, they call Engonasis. 

m The crown is placed under the feet of Hercules in the Atlas Ccelestis ; 
but Ophiuchus ('0^iovx°q)> the Snakeholder, is placed in the map by Flam- 
steed as described here by Aratus ; and their heads almost meet. The 
modern maps are not exactly answerable to this ancient description of the 
twisting of the serpent round the man; but as these given figures, which 
are chiefly derived from the ancients, are arbitrary, the science of astronomy 
does not suffer by such a difference in the figure of a constellation. 



126 OF THE NATURE book ii. 

The Greeks him Ophiuchus call, renown'd 
The name. He strongly grasps the Serpent round 
With both his hands; himself the Serpent folds 
Beneath his breast, and round his middle holds ; 
Yet gravely he, bright shining in the skies, 
Moves on, and treads on Nepa's" breast and eyes. 

The Septentriones are followed by 

Arctophylax p, that's said to be the same 
Which we Bootes call, who has the name, 
Because he drives the Greater Bear along 
Yoked to a wain. 

Besides, in Bootes 

A star of glittering rays about his waist, 
Arcturus call'd, a name renown'd, is placed i. 

Beneath which is 

The Virgin of illustrious form, whose hand 
Holds a bright spike 1 "; 



n The Scorpion. Ophiuchus, though a northern constellation, is not far 
from that part of the zodiac where the Scorpion is, which is one of the six 
southern signs. 

° The wain of seven stars. 

P The wain- driver. This northern constellation is, in our present maps, 
figured with a club in his right hand, behind the Greater Bear. 

<J In some modern maps Arcturus, a star of the first magnitude, is placed 
in the belt that is round the waist of Bootes. Cicero says subter prce- 
cordia, which is about the waist ; and Aratus says i>7rd £wvy, under the 
belt. 

r Cicero says, cui (that is, Arcturd) subjectafertur 

Spicum illustre tenens splendenti corpore Virgo. 

Cicero has not justly translated his author here. Aratus says she is placed 
beneath the feet of Bootes, 

'Ap<f>oTEpoi(n Sk UoGGiv Boojtov, k. t. \. 

and so the same constellation is placed in our modern maps. Bootes is a 



book ir. OF THE GODS. 127 

and truly these signs are so regularly disposed, that a 
divine wisdom evidently appears in them ; 

Beneath the Bear's s head have the Twins their seat, 
Under his chest the Crab, beneath his feet 
The mighty Lion darts a trembling flame 4 . 

The Charioteer 

On the left side of Gemini we see u , 

And at his head behold fierce Helice ; 

On his left shoulder the bright Goat appears. 

But, to proceed, 

This is indeed a great and glorious star. 
On th' other side the Kids, inferior far, 
Yield but a slender light to mortal eyes. 

* 

Under his feet 

The horned Bull x , with sturdy limbs, is placed; 

his head is sprinkled with a number of stars ; 

These by the Greeks are call'd the Hyades, 
a pluendo, from raining, for few is pluere to rain ; there- 
constellation of the northern hemisphere, not far from the zodiac; and the 
Virgin is one of the six northern signs in the zodiac. 

s Sub caput Arcti, under the head of the Greater Bear. 

1 The Crab is, by the ancients and moderns, placed in the zodiac, as 
here, betwixt the Twins and the Lion ; and they are all three northern 
signs. 

u The Twins are placed in the zodiac with the side of one to the northern 
hemisphere, and the side of the other to the southern hemisphere. Auriga, 
the Charioteer, is placed in the northern hemisphere, near the zodiac, by the 
Twins ; and at the head of the Charioteer is Helice, the Greater Bear, 
placed; and the Goat is a bright star of the first magnitude placed on the 
left shoulder of this northern constellation, and called Capra, the Goat; 
Haedi the Kids are two more stars of the same constellation. 

x A constellation; one of the northern signs in the zodiac, in which the 
Hyades are placed. 



128 OF THE NATURE book ii. 

fore they are injudiciously called Suculce by our people, 
as if they had their name a suibus from sows, and not 
from showers. 

Behind the Lesser Bear, Cepheus y follows with ex- 
tended hands, 

For close behind the Lesser Bear he moves. 

Before him goes 

Cassiopea 2 with a faintish light; 

But near her moves (fair and illustrious sight !) 

Andromeda 1 , who, with an eager pace, 

Seems to avoid her parent's mournful face b . 

TV Horse c shakes his glitt'ring mane, and seems to tread, 

So near he comes, on her refulgent head ; 

With a star's help, that close to him appears 

A double form d , and but one light he wears ; 

By which he seems ambitious in the sky 

An everlasting knot of stars to tie. 

Near him the Ram, with wreathed horns, is placed e ; 



y One of the feet of Cepheus, a northern constellation, is under the tail 
of the Lesser Bear in the map in Flamsteed's Atlas Ccelestis. See farther 
in my Inquiry into the Astronomy of the Ancients. 

z Grotius, and after him Dr. Davis, and other learned men, read Cassiepea 
after the Greek Kacraikrrua, and reject the common reading Cassiopea. 
This is a ridiculous nicety ; for as Cassiopea is generally used by Latin 
authors, and from the Latins by the moderns, it is proper the name should 
be so written; and I doubt not but Cicero wrote it so himself. They 
might with as much propriety have rejected Arctophylax and Procyon for 
Arctophulax and Procuon, because the Greeks wrote them 'ApKTO<pv\a$ and 
UpoKViov, and so of many other words ; and they who pay so nice a regard 
to the original ought to write Cassiepeia. 

a These northern constellations here mentioned have been always placed 
together as one family, with Cepheus and Perseus, as they are in our 
modern maps. 

b This alludes to the fable of Perseus and Andromeda. See farther in 
my Inquiry into the Astronomy of the Ancients. 

c Pegasus, who is one of Perseus and Andromeda's family. 

d That is, with wings. 

c Now all the six northern sijrns have been named in these verses of 



book ii. OF THE GODS. 129 

by whom 

The Fishes f are, of which one seems to haste 
Somewhat before the other, to the blast 
Of the north wind exposed. 

Perseus is described as placed at the feet of Andro- 
meda g : 

And him the sharp blasts of the north wind beat. 
Near his left knee, but dim their light, their seat 
The small Pleiades 1 ' maintain. We find, 
Not far from them, the Lyre' but slightly join'd. 
Next is the Winged Bird k , that seems to fly 
Beneath the spacious cov'ring of the sky. 

Near the head of the Horse 1 lies the right hand of 
Aquarius, then all Aquarius himself" 1 . 

Then Capricorn, with half the form of beast, 

Breathes chill and piercing colds from his strong breast, 



Aratus, though not in the order in which they are placed in the zodiac. See 
farther in ray Inquiry into the Astronomy of the Ancients ; in which the 
division of the heavens into the two hemispheres by the zodiac is treated of, 
as is the division of the zodiac into its dodecatemories, or twelve parts. 

f Aries, the Ram, is the first northern sign in the zodiac ; Pisces, the 
Fishes, the last southern sign ; therefore they must be near one another, as 
they are in a circle or belt. In Flamsteed's Atlas Ccelestis one of the 
Fishes is near the head of the Ram, and the other near the Urn of Aquarius. 

s He is so described in the Atlas Ccelestis. 

h These are called Vergiliae by Cicero, by Aratus the Pleiades, HXrj'iddsQ; 
and they are placed at the neck of the Bull ; and one of Perseus's feet 
touches the Bull in the Atlas Ccelestis. 

' This northern constellation is called Fides by Cicero; but it must be 
the same with Lyra ; because Lyra is placed in our maps as Fides is here. 

k This is called Ales Avis by Tully ; and I doubt not but the northern 
constellation Cygnus is here to be understood ; for the description and place 
of the Swan in the Atlas Ccelestis are the same which Ales Avis has here. 

1 Pegasus. 

m The Water-bearer, one of the six southern signs in the zodiac. He is 
described in our maps pouring water out of an urn, and leaning with one 
hand on the tail of Capricorn, another southern sign. 

K 



130 OF THE NATURE book ii. 

And in a spacious circle takes his round; 
When him, while in the winter-solstice bound, 
The sun has visited with constant light, 
He turns his course and shorter makes the night". 

Not far from hence is seen 

The Scorpion rising lofty from below; 
By him the Archer p, with his bended bow; 
Near him the bird, with gaudy feathers spread <i ; 
And the fierce Eagle r hovers o'er his head. 

Next comes the Dolphin s , 

Then bright Orion *, who obliquely moves ; 

he is followed by 

The fervent Dog u bright with refulgent stars : 

next the Hare follows x 

Unwearied in his course. At the Dog's tail 
Argo y moves on, and moving seems to sail ; 



n When the sun is in Capricorn the days are at the shortest, and when in 
Cancer at the longest. 

° One of the six southern signs. 

p Sagittarius, another southern sign. 

<i The Peacock is said by modern astronomers to have been unknown to 
the ancients; but I am inclined, from this description, to think otherwise. 
Bayer, Kepler, and others, make it a southern constellation. 

r A northern constellation. 

• A northern constellation. 
1 A southern constellation. 

u This is Canis Major, a southern constellation. Orion and the Dog are 
named together by Hesiod, who flourished many hundred years before 
Cicero or Aratus. See my Inquiry into the Astronomy of the Ancients. 

* A southern constellation, placed as here in the Atlas Ccelestis. 

y A southern constellation, so called from the ship Argo, in which Jason 
and the rest of the Argonauts sailed on their expedition to Colchos. 



book ir. OF THE GODS. 131 

O'er her the Ram and Fishes have their place 1 ; 
The illustrious vessel touches in her pace, 
The River's banks a ; 

which you may see winding and extending itself to a 
great length. 

The Fetters b at the Fishes' tails are hung. 
By Nepa's c head behold the Altar stand d , 
Which by the breath of southern winds isfann'd; 

near which the Centaur 6 

Hastens his horsy parts to join beneath 
The Serpent f , there extending his right hand 
To where you see the monstrous Scorpion stand, 
Which he at the bright Altar fiercely slays. 
Here on her lower parts see Hydra g raise 
Herself; 

whose bulk is very far extended. 

Amidst the winding of her body 's placed 
The shining Goblet h ; and the glossy Crow 1 
Plunges his beak into her parts below. 



% The Ram is the first of the northern signs in the zodiac ; and the last 
southern sign is the Fishes ; which two signs, meeting in the zodiac, cover 
the constellation called Argo. 

a The river Eridanus, a southern constellation. 

b A southern constellation. 

c This is called the Scorpion in the original of Aratus. 

d A southern constellation. 

e A southern constellation. 

f The Serpent is not mentioned in Cicero's translation ; but it is in the 
original of Aratus. 

% A southern constellation. 

h The Goblet, or Cup, a southern constellation. 

1 A southern constellation. 

K 2 



132 OF THE NATURE book ii. 

Antecanis beneath the Twins is seen, 
Call'd Procyon by the Greeks k . 

Can any one in his senses imagine that this dispo- 
sition of the stars, and this heaven so beautifully 
adorned, could have been effected by a fortuitous con- 
course of atoms ? or that these things, which could not 
be produced without reason, nay, which could not 
have been conceived without great wisdom, could be 
the work of any nature void of understanding? 

But our admiration is not limited to the objects here 
described. What is most wonderful is, that the world 
is not to be impaired by time; for all the parts tend 
equally to the centre, and are bound together by a 
sort of chain, which surrounds the elements ; this chain 
is nature, which, diffused through the universe, and 
performing all things with judgment and reason, at- 
tracts the extremities to the centre. 

If then the world is round, and, consequently, its 
circumference being the same, all the parts mutually 
support themselves, it must follow that all the parts 
incline to the centre (the lowest place of a globe) with- 
out anything to put a stop to that great propensity. 
For the same reason, though the sea is higher than 
the earth, yet, because it has the like tendency, it 
equally concentres and never overflows. The air, 
which is contiguous, ascends by its levity, but diffuses 
itself through the whole ; and, if it be by nature elevated 
towards the heaven, it is so tempered by a refined 
heat, that it is made proper for the life and support of 

k Antecanis, a southern constellation, is the Little Dog, and called 
Antecanis in Latin, and IlpoKviov in Greek, because he rises before the 
other Dog. 



book ii. OF THE GODS. 13 



c% 



animated beings. This is encompassed by the highest 
region of the heavens, the sky, which is joined to the 
extremity of the air, but retains its own ardour pure 
and unmixed. 

The stars have their revolutions in the sky, and are 
continued by the tendency of all parts to the centre; 
their duration is perpetuated by their form and figure, 
for they are round ; which form, as I think has been 
before observed, can receive no hurt ; and, as they are 
composed of fire, they are fed by the vapours, which 
are exhaled by the sun from the earth, the sea, and 
other waters ; but when these vapours have nourished 
and refreshed the stars, and the whole sky, they are 
sent back to be exhaled again ; so that very little is lost 
or consumed by the fire of the stars and the flame of 
the sky. 

From hence we Stoics conclude, which Panetius 1 is 
said to have doubted, that the whole world at last 
would be in a general conflagration ; when, all moisture 
being exhausted, neither the earth could have any 
nourishment, nor the air return again, since water, of 
which it is formed, would then be all consumed ; so 
that only fire would subsist ; and from this fire, which 
is an animating power and a deity, a new world would 
arise and be reestablished in the same beauty. 

I will not dwell much longer upon this subject of the 
stars ; but what I have to say is particularly of the 
planets, whose motions, though different, make a very 
just agreement. Saturn the highest, chills; Mars, 
placed in the middle, burns ; while Jupiter, interposing, 
moderates their excess. The two planets" 1 beneath 

1 Panetius, a Stoic philosopher. 
m Mercury and Venus. 



134 OF THE NATURE book ii. 

Mars obey the sun. The sun himself fills the whole 
universe with his own genial light ; and the moon, illu- 
minated by him, influences conception, birth, and 
maturity. None of these reflections, I am certain, 
have been made by those who have never considered 
this union, this harmonious concurrence of nature for 
the preservation of the world. 

Let us proceed from celestial to terrestrial things. 
What is there in them which does not prove an intel- 
ligent nature ? First, as to vegetables ; they have roots 
to sustain their stems, and to draw from the earth a 
nourishing moisture 11 . They are clothed with a rind 
or bark to secure them from heat and cold. The vines 
we see take hold on props with their tendrils, as if with 
hands, and raise themselves as if they were animated ; 
it is even said that they shun cabbages and coleworts 
as noxious and pestilential to them, and if planted by 
them will not touch any part. 

But what a vast variety is there of animals ; and how 
wonderfully is every kind capacitated to preserve itself! 
Some are covered with hides, some clothed with fleeces, 
and some guarded with bristles ; some are sheltered 
with feathers, some with scales ; some are armed with 
horns, and some are assisted with wings. Nature has 
also liberally and plentifully provided their proper 
food; I could expatiate on the judicious and curious 

n According to late observations, all vegetables are nourished by the 
earthy particles which the water conveys through them. If several plants, 
or flowers, are put separately into glasses or pots of water, they will gradu- 
ally perish in proportion to the earthy particles in each glass or pot. The 
plant, or flower, which is put in the water that is most purged of earthy 
particles, will fade and perish the soonest. These facts are clearly demon- 
strated by Dr. Woodward in his treatise on this subject, which he founds 
on frequent experiments. 



book ir. OF THE GODS. 135 

formation and disposition of their bodies for the recep- 
tion and digestion of it ; for all their interior parts are 
so framed and disposed that there is nothing super- 
fluous, nothing that is not necessary for the conserva- 
tion of life. Besides, nature hath given them appetite 
and sense ; that by one they may be excited to procure 
sufficient sustenance, and by the other they may distin- 
guish the noxious from the salutary. Some animals 
approach their food walking, some creeping, some 
flying, and some swimming ; some take it with their 
mouth and teeth ; some seize it with their claws, and 
some with their beaks ; some suck, some graze, some 
devour whole, and some chew it. Some are so low 
that with ease they feed on the ground, but the taller, 
as geese, swans, cranes, and camels, are assisted by a 
length of neck. To the elephant is given a hand 
without which, from the unwieldiness of body, he would 
scarce have any means of obtaining food. 

But to those beasts which live by preying on others, 
nature has given either strength or swiftness. On some 
animals she has even bestowed artifice and cunning : as 
on spiders, some of which weave a sort of net to entrap 
whatever comes, others sit on the watch unobserved to 
fall on their prey and devour it. The naker, by the 
Greeks called pinna p , has a kind of confederacy with 
the prawn for procuring food. It has two large shells 
open, into which when the little fishes swim, the naker, 



The proboscis of the elephant is frequently called a hand, because it 
is as useful to him as one. They breathe, drink, and smell, with what may 
not improperly be called a hand, says Pliny, b. 8. c. 10. Davis. 

p Some write it'ivr) pina, some Ttivvr) pinna ; which is a shell-fish that 
we call the naker. 



136 OF THE NATURE book ii. 

having notice given by the bite of the prawn q , closes 
them immediately. Thus these little animals, though 
of different kinds, seek their food in common ; in which 
it is matter of wonder, whether they associate by any 
agreement, or are naturally joined together from their 
beginning. 

There is some cause of admiration also in those 
aquatic animals which are generated on land, as croco- 
diles, river- tortoises, and a certain kind of serpents, 
which seek the water as soon as they are able to drag 
themselves along. We frequently put duck eggs under 
hens, by which, as by their true mothers, the ducklings 
are at first hatched and nourished ; but when they see 
the water, they forsake them and run to it, as to their 
natural abode, so strong is the impression of nature in 
animals for their own preservation. 

I have read of a bird called (platalea) the shoveler, 
that lives by watching those fowls which dive into the 
sea for their prey, and when they return with it he 
squeezes their heads with his beak till they drop it, 
and then seizes on it himself; it is said likewise that he 
will fill his stomach with shell-fish, and when they are 
concocted by the heat therein, cast them up, and then 
pick out what is proper nourishments 



*i Squilla is a lobster, and parva squilla is used for a prawn or shrimp. 
The parva squilla is mentioned by Pliny ; but I cannot conceive how natu- 
ralists arrived at this knowledge of the naker's manner of getting food by 
the help of the prawn, since the discovery must be made under water; or 
let us suppose that they might observe the naker lying on the surface, with 
one shell under and another above the water, and the little fishes swimming 
in, yet I am sure they can never discover the prawn giving notice to the 
naker by a bite, of the entrance of the fishes. 

r What is here related of the platalea, which is usually called the shoveler 
in English, is, as Dr. Davis observes, told of the pelican; of which Bochart 
has collected abundance of testimonies. 



book n. OF THE GODS. 137 

The sea-frogs, they say, are wont to cover them- 
selves with sand, and, moving near the water, the fishes 
strike at them as at a bait, and are themselves taken 
and devoured by the frogs. Between the kite and the 
crow there is a kind of natural war, that wherever the 
one finds the eggs of the other he breaks them. 

Aristotle, amongst many curious remarks of this 
kind, has observed one thing worthy of admiration. 
When the cranes s pass the sea in search of warmer 
climes, they fly in the form of a triangle. By the first 
angle they repel the resisting air; on each side their 
wings serve as oars to facilitate their flight ; and the 
basis of their triangle is assisted by the wind in their 
stern. Those which are behind rest their necks and 
heads on those which precede, and as the leader has 
not the same relief, because he has none to lean upon, 
he at length flies behind that he may also rest, while 
one of those which have been eased succeeds him ; 
and through the whole flight each regularly takes his 
turn. 

I could produce many instances of this kind, but you 
see enough in this. Let us now proceed to things 
more familiar to us. The care of beasts for their own 
preservation, their circumspection while feeding, and 
their manner of taking rest, are greatly to be admired. 
Dogs ease themselves by a vomit*, the Egyptian ibises 

s The passage of Aristotle's Works to which Cicero here alludes is en- 
tirely lost; but Plutarch gives a similar account of the cranes ; and Homer, 
who wrote many centuries before Aristotle, has a fine simile in his Iliad, 
taken from the regular flight of the cranes. 

' Some read vomitione canis purgare alvos ibes JEgyptice curant ; that is, 
the Egyptian ibises take care to purge themselves with the vomit of a dog; 
but Dr. Davis and other judicious critics choose vomitione canes, purgatione 
autem alvos ibes JEgypti(B, curant ; in which sense I- have translated it ; and 



138 OF THE NATURE book ii. 

by a purge ; from whence physicians have lately, I 
mean but few ages since, greatly improved their art. 
It is reported that panthers, which in barbarous coun- 
tries are taken with poisoned flesh, have a certain 
remedy u , that preserves them from dying ; and that in 
Crete the wild goats, when they are wounded with 
poisoned arrows, seek for an herb called dittany, which 
when they have tasted, the arrows, they say, drop from 
their bodies. It is said also that deer, before they 
fawn, purge themselves with a little herb called harts- 
wort x . 

Let us observe next, that beasts, when they receive 
any hurt, or fear it, have recourse to their natural 
arms ; the bull to his horns, the boar to his tusks, and 
the lion to his teeth y . Some take to flight, others 
hide themselves ; the cuttle-fish vomits blood z , the 
cramp-fish benumbs ; and there are many animals that 
by their intolerable stink oblige their pursuers to 
retire. 

But, that the beauty of the world might be eternal, 
great care has been taken by the providence of the 
gods to perpetuate the different kinds of animals and 
vegetables; in order to which, every individual has 

it is a common observation that dogs will eat grass and purge themselves by 
vomiting ; and the Egyptian bird, the ibis, is said by several writers to give 
itself a clyster with its bill. 

u Balbus does not tell us the remedy which the panther makes use of ; 
but Pliny is not quite so delicate, he says ejcrementis hominis sibi medetur. 

x Aristotle says they purge themselves with this herb after they fawn ; 
Pliny says both before and after. 

y The original is apri dentibus, inorsu leones ; they are both armed with 
the power of biting ; and I think dentibus and morsu have no more difference 
here than there is between tusks and teeth. 

1 The cuttle-fish has a bag at its neck, the black blood in which the Ro- 
mans used for ink ; it was called utramentum. 



BOOK IT. 



OF THE GODS. 139 



within itself such fertile seed, that many are generated 
from one; and in vegetables this seed is enclosed in 
the heart of their fruit, but in such abundance that 
men may plentifully feed on it, and the earth be always 
replanted. 

With regard to animals, do we not see with what 
judgment they were made for the propagation of their 
species ? Nature for this end created some males and 
some females. Their parts are perfectly framed for 
generation, and they have a wonderful propensity to 
copulation. When the seed has fallen on the matrix 
it draws almost all the nourishment to itself, by which 
the foetus is formed ; but as soon as it is discharged 
from thence, if it be an animal that is nourished by milk, 
almost all the food of the mother turns into milk, and 
the animal, without any direction but by the pure in- 
stinct of nature, immediately hunts for the teat, and 
is there fed with plenty. What makes it evidently 
appear that there is nothing in this fortuitous, but the 
work of a wise and foreseeing nature is, that those 
females which bring forth many young, as sows and 
bitches, have many teats, and those which bear a small 
number have but few. 

What tenderness do beasts show in preserving and 
raising up their young till they are able to defend 
themselves? They say, indeed, that fish, when they 
have spawned, leave their eggs; but the water easily 
supports them, and produces the young fry in abun- 
dance. It is said likewise that tortoises and crocodiles, 
when they have laid their eggs on the land, only cover 
them with earth, and then leave them, so that their 
young are hatched and brought up without assistance ; 
but fowls and other birds seek for quiet places to lay 



p 

140 OF THE NATURE book 11. 

in, where they build their nests in the softest manner, 
for the surest preservation of their eggs; which, when 
they have hatched, they defend from the cold by the 
warmth of their wings, or screen them from the sultry 
heat of the sun. When their young begin to fly, they 
attend and instruct them, and then their cares are at 
an end. Human art and industry are indeed necessary 
towards the preservation and improvement of certain 
animals and vegetables, for there are several of both 
kinds which would perish without that assistance. 

Mankind likewise receives great advantages from 
different soils. The Nile waters Egypt, and after 
having overflowed and covered it the whole summer, it 
retires and leaves the fields softened and manured for 
the reception of seed. The Euphrates fertilizes Meso- 
potamia, into which, as we may say, it carries yearly 
new fields a . The Indus, which is the largest b of all 
rivers, not only improves and cultivates the ground, 
but sows it also ; for it is said to carry with it a great 
quantity of grain. I could mention many other coun- 
tries remarkable for something singular, and many 
fields which are, in their own natures, exceedingly 
fertile. 

But how bountiful is nature that has provided for 
us such various and delicious food ; and this in dif- 
ferent seasons, that we may be constantly pleased with 
change and with plenty ! How seasonable and useful 
to man, to beasts, and even to vegetables, are the 



a The Euphrates is said to carry into Mesopotamia a large quantity of 
citrons, with which it covers the fields. 

'• Q. Curtius and some other authors say the Ganges is the largest river 
in India ; but Ammianus Marcellinus concurs with Tully in calling the 
river Indus the largest of all rivers. 



BooKir. OF THE GODS. 141 

eastern winds* she has bestowed, which moderate in- 
temperate heat, and render navigation more sure and 
speedy ! 

Many things must be omitted on a subject so copi- 
ous ; for it is impossible to relate the great utility of 
rivers, the flux and reflux of the sea, the mountains 
clothed with grass and trees, the salt-pits remote from 
the seacoasts, the earth replete with salutary medi- 
cines, or, in short, the innumerable designs of nature 
necessary for sustenance and the enjoyment of life. 
We must not forget the vicissitude of day and night, 
ordained for the health of animated beings, giving 
them a time to labour and a time to rest. 

Thus, if we every way examine the universe, it is 
apparent, from the greatest reason, that the whole is 
admirably governed by a divine providence for the 
safety and preservation of all beings. 

If it should be asked for whose sake this mighty 
fabric was raised, shall we say for trees and other 
vegetables, which, though destitute of sense, are sup- 
ported by nature ? That would be absurd. Is it for 
beasts ? Nothing can be less probable than that the 
gods should have taken such pains for beings void of 
speech and understanding. For whom then? Un- 
doubtedly for reasonable beings ; these are the gods 
and men, who are certainly the most perfect of all 
beings, as nothing is equal to reason ; it is therefore 
credible that the universe and all things in it were 
made for the gods and for men. 

But we may yet more easily comprehend that the 



c Those eastern winds are anniversary, and blow at certain seasons and 
for a certain time. 



142 OF THE NATURE book ii. 

world was given by the gods to men, if we examine 
thoroughly into the structure of the body and the form 
and perfection of human nature d . 

There are three things absolutely necessary for the 
support of life ; to eat, to drink, and to breathe ; for 
these operations the mouth is most aptly framed, which 
by the assistance of the nostrils draws in the more air. 
The teeth are there placed to divide and grind 6 the 
food. The fore-teeth, being sharp and opposite to 
each other, cut it asunder, and the hind-teeth (called 
the grinders) chew it ; in which office the tongue seems 
to assist. At the root of the tongue is the gullet, which 
receives whatever is swallowed ; it touches the tonsils 
on each side, and terminates at the interior extremity 
of the palate. When by the motions of the tongue the 
food is forced into this passage, it descends, and those 
parts of the gullet which are below it are dilated, and 
those above are contracted. There is another passage, 
called by physicians the rough artery g , which reaches 
to the lungs for the entrance and return of the air we 
breathe ; and, as its orifice is joined to the roots of the 
tongue a little above the part to which the gullet is 
annexed, it is furnished with a sort of coverlid h , lest 



d If we strictly examine the structure of the human body as here ana- 
tomically described, we may reasonably conclude that it could not be the 
effect of matter and motion only. 

e Some read mollitur and some molitur; the latter of which P. Manucius 
justly prefers, from the verb molo, molis ; from whence, says he, molares 
dentes, the grinders. Most men have just thirty-two teeth ; four fore-teeth, 
two dog-teeth, and ten grinders in each jaw. 

f We call them almonds; which are two glandules, by the roots of the 
tongue, opposite each other. 

S The weasand/or windpipe. 

h The epiglottis, which is a cartilaginous flap in the shape of a tongue, 
and therefore called so ; its office is very wonderful, in shutting down when 



book ii. OF THE GODS. 143 

by the accidental falling of any food into it the respira- 
tion should be stopped. 

As the stomach, which is beneath the gullet, re- 
ceives the meat and drink, so the lungs and the heart 
draw in the air from without. The stomach is wonder- 
fully composed, consisting almost wholly of nerves ; it 
abounds with membranes and fibres, and detains what 
it receives, whether solid or liquid, till it is altered and 
digested. It sometimes contracts, sometimes dilates. 
It blends and mixes the food together,, so that it is 
easily concocted and digested by its force of heat, and 
by the animal spirits is distributed into the other parts 
of the body. As to the lungs, they are of a soft and 
spungy substance, which renders them the most com- 
modious for respiration; they alternately dilate and 
contract to receive and return the air, that what is the 
chief animal sustenance may be always fresh. 

The juice 1 , by which we are nourished, being sepa- 
rated from the rest of the food, passes the stomach 
and intestines to the liver, through open and direct 
passages, which lead from the mysentery to the ports 
of the liver (for so they call those vessels at the en- 
trance of it). There are other passages from thence, 
through which the food has its course, when it has 
passed the liver. When the choler k and those hu- 



we swallow, lest what we eat should go down that passage and obstruct 
the breath. 

1 Cicero is here giving the opinion of the ancients concerning the passage 
of the chyle till it is converted to blood. By the intestines he means the 
guts and ventricle. Our food, after concoction in the stomach, falls into 
the intestines, where the finest part turns to chyle. 

k In all concoctions there is choler, which is a fiery excrement, and no 
art can be more regular than this chymical progress of the food; part of 
which proceeds to chyle and blood, in the anatomical system of man. 



144 OF THE NATURE book ii. 

mours, which proceed from the reins, are separated 
from the food, the remaining part turns to blood and 
flows to those vessels at the entrance of the liver, to 
which all the passages adjoin. The chyle, being con- 
veyed from this place through them into the vessel 
called the hollow vein 1 , is mixed together, and, being 
already digested and distilled, passes into the heart ; 
and from the heart it is communicated through a great 
number of veins to every part of the body m . It is not 
difficult to describe how the gross remains are detruded 
by the motion of the intestines, which contract and 
dilate; but that must be declined, as too indelicate for 
discourse. 

Let us rather explain that other wonder of nature. 
The air, which is drawn into the lungs, receives heat 
both by that already in, and by the coagitation of the 
lungs ; one part is turned back by respiration, and the 
other is received into a place called the ventricle of the 
heart". There is another ventricle like it annexed to 
the heart, into which the blood flows from the liver 
through the hollow vein; thus by one ventricle the 
blood is diffused to the extremities through the veins, 
and by the other the breath is communicated through 
the arteries ; and there are such numbers of both dis- 
persed through the whole body that they manifest a 
divine art. 



1 I here refer the reader to my Inquiry into the Astronomy and Anatomy 
of the Ancients at the end of this work; where he will see what are the 
offices of the arteries, veins, and nerves. 

m The arteries, veins, and nerves are spread through the body like the 
branches of a tree ; and every ramification has its office: but of this more 
may be seen in my Inquiry, etc. 

n What Tully here calls the two ventricles of the heart are likewise called 
auricles, of which there is the right and left. 



book ii. OF THE GODS. 145 

Shall I speak of the bones, those supports of the 
body, whose joints are so wonderfully contrived for 
stability, and to render the limbs complete with regard 
to motion and to every action of the body ? Shall I 
mention the nerves, by which the limbs are governed, 
their many interweavings and their proceeding from 
the heart , from whence, like the veins and arteries, 
they have their origin, and are distributed through the 
whole corporeal frame ? 

To this skill of nature and this care of providence 
many reflections may be added, which show what valu- 
able things the deity has bestowed on man. He has 
made us of a stature tall and upright p , that beholding 
the heavens we might arrive to the knowledge of the 
gods; for we are not simply to dwell here as inhabi- 
tants of the earth, but to contemplate the heavens and 
the stars ; a privilege not granted to any other kind of 
animated beings. 

The senses, which are the interpreters and messen- 
gers' 1 of things, are placed in the head as in a tower, 
and wonderfully situated for their proper uses ; for the 
eyes, being in the highest part, have the office of centi- 
nels, in discovering to us the objects ; and the ears are 
conveniently placed in an eminent part, being appointed 

The Stoics and Peripatetics said, that the nerves, veins, and arteries 
came directly from the heart. According to the anatomy of the moderns, 
they come from the brain. See my Inquiry, etc. 

p Xenophon has used the same argument to show the wisdom of the 
deity in the constitution of man, as he has other arguments similar to what 
are used by the Stoic, soon after in his examination into the senses. 

1 The senses are here called interpretes uc nuntii rerum, the interpreters 
and messengers of things ; that is, they are the messengers which carry 
and distinguish objects to the mind, without which no idea could have 
place in the mind, as Mr. Locke has abundantly demonstrated in his first 
two books Concerning Human Understanding. 

L 



146 OF THE NATURE book ii. 

to receive sound, which naturally ascends. The nos- 
trils have the like situation, because all scent likewise 
ascends ; and have, with great reason, a near vicinity 
to the mouth; because they assist us in judging of 
meat and drink. The taste, which is to distinguish 
the quality of what we take, is in that part of the mouth 
where nature has laid open a passage for what we eat 
and drink r ; but the touch is equally diffused through 
the whole body, that we may not receive any blows, or 
the too rigid attacks of cold and heat, without feeling 
them ; and as in building the architect averts from the 
eyes and nose of the master those things which must 
necessarily be offensive, so has nature removed far 
from our senses what is of the same kind in the human 
body s . 

What artificer but nature, whose direction is incom- 
parable, could so artfully have formed the senses? She 
has covered and invested the eyes with the finest mem- 
branes, which she has made transparent that we see 
through them, and firm in their texture to preserve 
the eyes. She has made them slippery and move- 
able, that they might avoid what would offend them, 
and easily direct the sight wherever they will. The 
point of sight, which is called the pupil, is so small 



r The taste is the office of the palate towards the throat. 

s The Stoic here bestows unnecessary praises on his architect, nature ; for 
if we examine into the easy communication of sound and scents to the ears 
and nostrils, we shall find those two senses as susceptible of offensive sounds 
and smells as of such as are pleasing ; nor are they so placed as to refuse 
the bad any more than the good, but are placed upwards the more easily to 
admit sounds and smells, because they ascend, as Balbus said but a little 
before ; he therefore contradicts himself too soon not to have it observed ; 
the eyes indeed are naturally placed more out of the reach of offensive 
objects than the nostrils or ears. 



book ii. OF THE GODS. 147 

that it can easily shun whatever may be hurtful to it. 
The eyelids, which are their coverings, are soft and 
smooth that they may not injure the eyes, and are 
made to shut at the apprehension of any accident, or 
to open at pleasure, and these movements nature has 
ordained to be made in an instant; they are fortified 
with a sort of palisade of hairs to keep off what may 
be noxious to them when open, and to be a fence to 
their repose, when sleep closes them and renders them 
useless. Besides, they are commodiously hidden and 
defended by eminences on every side ; for on the upper 
part the eyebrows turn aside the sweat which falls 
from the head and forehead; the cheeks beneath, 
having a little rising, protect the lower ; and the nose 
is placed between them as a wall of separation. 

The hearing is always open ; for that is a sense we 
need even while we are sleeping. If any sound enter, we 
awake. It has a winding passage, lest anything should 
slip into it, as it might if it were straight and even. 
Nature has also taken the same precaution in making 
there a viscous humour, that if any little creatures should 
endeavour to creep in they might stick in it as in bird- 
lime. The ears (by which we mean the outward part) 
are made prominent, to cover and preserve the hearing, 
lest the sound should dissipate and escape before the 
sense is affected. Their entrances are hard and horny, 
and their form winding, because bodies of this kind 
better return and increase the sound. This appears 
in the harp, lute, or horn 1 ; and from all tortuous and 
enclosed places sounds are returned stronger. 



1 Our author means all musical instruments, whether stringed or wind 
instruments, which are hollow and tortuous. 

l2 



118 OF THE NATURE book ii. 

The nostrils in like manner are ever open, because 
we have a continual use for them. Their entrances are 
narrower, lest anything noxious should enter them, 
and they have always an humidity necessary for the 
repelling dust and other extraneous bodies. 

The taste, having the mouth as an enclosure, is ad- 
mirably situated both in regard to the use we make of 
it and to its securitv. 

Besides, every human sense is much more exquisite u 
than those of brutes ; for our eyes, in those arts which 
come under their judgment, distinguish more nicely; 
as in painting, sculpture, and in the gesture and motion 
of bodies. They understand the beauty, proportion, 
and, as I may so term it, the decency of colours and 
figures ; they distinguish things of greater importance, 
even virtues and vices; they know whether a man is 
angry or calm, cheerful or sad, courageous or cowardly, 
bold or timorous. The judgment of the ear is not less 
wonderful with regard to vocal and instrumental music. 
They distinguish the variety of sounds, the measure, the 
stops, the different sorts of voices, the treble and the 
bass, the soft and the harsh, the sharp and the flat, of 
which human ears only are capable of judging. There 
is likewise great judgment in the smell, the taste, and 
the touch; to indulge and gratify which senses more 
arts have been invented than I could wish : it is ap- 
parent to what excess we are arrived in the composi- 
tion of our perfumes, the preparation of our food, and 
the enjoyment of corporeal pleasures. 

Again, he who does not perceive the soul and mind 

11 I question the truth of this. We have reason to helieve that dogs 
have a more sagacious smell than men. 



book ii. OF THE GODS. 149 

of man, his reason, prudence, and discernment to be 
the work of a divine providence, seems himself to be 
destitute of those faculties. While I am on this sub- 
ject, Cotta, I wish I had your eloquence ; how would 
you illustrate so fine a subject ! You would show the 
great extent of the understanding; how we collect our 
ideas, and join those which follow to those which pre- 
cede; establish principles, draw consequences, define 
things separately, and comprehend them together ; 
from whence you would demonstrate that we are 
arrived to a true knowledge, which is the fulness of 
perfection even in the deity. 

How valuable (though you Academics despise and 
even deny we have it) is our knowledge of exterior 
objects x , from the perception of the senses, joined to 
the application of the mind ; by which we see in what 
relation one thing stands to another, and from thence 
have invented those arts which are necessary for the 
support and pleasure of life. 

How charming is eloquence ! how divine that mis- 
tress of the universe, as you call it ! It learns us what 
we were ignorant of, and makes us capable of teaching 
what we have learned. By this we admonish ; by this 
we persuade; by this we comfort the afflicted; by this 
we deliver the affrighted from their fear ; by this we 
moderate excessive mirth ; by this we assuage the pas- 
sions of lust and anger. It is this which has imposed 
laws, formed the bonds of civil society, and has made 
us quit a wild and savage life. 



x The Stoic here explodes that doctrine of the Academics, which denies 
our seeing anything without us, but makes all to be internal ; a whimsical 
doctrine, strongly asserted by Malbranche, and the favourite hypothesis of 
the ingenious author of the Minute Philosopher ! 



150 OF THE NATURE book ii. 

Nor will you yet believe, unless you carefully observe, 
how complete the work of nature is in giving us the 
use of speech ; for, first, there is an artery from the 
lungs to the bottom of the mouth, through which the 
voice, having its original principle in the mind, is trans- 
mitted. Then the tongue is placed in the mouth, 
bounded by the teeth. It softens and modulates the 
voice, which would otherwise be confusedly uttered; 
and, by pushing it to the teeth and other parts of the 
mouth, makes the sound distinct and articulate. We 
Stoics therefore compare the tongue to the bow of an 
instrument y , the teeth to the strings, and the nostrils 
to the body of it. 

But how commodious are the hands which nature 
has given to man, and how ministerial to many arts! 
for such is the flexibility of the joints, that our fingers 
are closed and opened without any difficulty. With 
their help the hand is formed for painting, carving, and 
engraving ; for playing on stringed instruments and on 
the pipe. These are matters of pleasure; those of 
necessity are tilling the ground, building houses, making 
cloth and habits, and working in brass and iron. It is 
the part of the mind to invent, the senses to perceive, 
and the hand to execute ; so that if we have buildings, 
if we are clothed, if we live in safety, if we have cities, 
walls, habitations, and temples, it is to the hands we 
owe them. 

By our labour, that is, by our hands, variety and 
plenty of food are provided ; for without culture many 
fruits, which serve either for present or future con- 



y This simile has been used by various authors. The instrument to 
which the tongue, teeth, and nostrils are here resembled is the dulcimer. 



book ii. OF THE GODS. 151 

sumption, would not be produced ; besides, we feed on 
flesh, fish, and fowl, catching some, and bringing up 
others. We subdue four-footed beasts for our car- 
riage, whose speed and strength supply our slowness 
and inability. On some we put burthens, on others 
yokes. We convert the sagacity of the elephant and the 
quick scent of the dog to our own advantage. Out of 
the caverns of the earth we dig iron, with which we till 
the ground. We discover the hidden veins of copper, 
silver, and gold, and apply them to our use and orna- 
ment. We fell both planted and forest trees and 
timber, as well to make fire to warm us and dress our 
meat, as to erect coverings to defend us from heat and 
cold. With timber likewise we build ships, which 
bring us from all parts every commodity of life. We 
are the only animals who, from our knowledge of navi- 
gation, can manage, what nature has made the most 
violent, the sea and the winds. Thus we obtain from 
the ocean great numbers of profitable things. We are 
absolutely the masters of what the earth produces. 
We enjoy the mountains and the plains. The rivers 
and the lakes are ours. We sow the seed, and plant 
the trees. We fertilize the earth by overflowing it. 
We stop, direct, and turn the rivers; in short, our 
hands endeavour, in the nature of things 2 , to make, as 
we may say, another nature. 

But what shall I say of human reason ? Has it not 
even entered the heavens? Man alone of all animals 
has observed the courses of the stars, their risings 
and settings. By man, the day, the month, the year is 



z By the nature of things here our author means the world, which is the 
province of nature, in which she operates. 



152 OF THE NATURE book 11. 

determined. He foresees the eclipses of the sun and 
moon, and foretells them to futurity, marking their great- 
ness, duration, and precise time. From the contempla- 
tion of these things the mind extracts the knowledge of 
the gods; a knowledge which produces piety, justice, 
and the other virtues; from which arises a life of feli- 
city, equal and like to that of the gods, except in 
immortality, which is not absolutely necessary to happy 
living. 

In explaining these things, I think I have suffi- 
ciently demonstrated the superiority of man to other 
animated beings ; from whence we should infer, that 
neither the form and position of his limbs, nor that 
strength of mind and understanding, could possibly be 
the effect of chance. I am now to prove, by way of 
conclusion, that everything in this world, of use to us, 
was made designedly for us. 

First, the universe was made for the gods and men, 
and all things therein were prepared and provided for 
our service. It is the common habitation or city of the 
gods and men ; for they are the only reasonable 
beings; they alone live by justice and law. As there- 
fore it must be presumed the cities of Athens and 
Lacedaemon were built for the Athenians and Lacedae- 
monians, and as everything there is said to belong to 
those people, so everything in the universe may be 
thought to be for the gods and men. 

Though the revolutions of the sun, moon, and all 
the stars, are necessary for the cohesion of the uni- 
verse, yet are they also the objects of man's view. 
There is no sight less apt to satiate the eye, none more 
beautiful or more worthy to employ our reason and 
penetration. By measuring their courses we find the 



book ii. OF THE GODS. 153 

different seasons, their durations and vicissitudes, 
which, if known only to men, we must believe were 
made only for their sake. 

Does the earth bring forth fruit and grain, in such 
abundance and variety, for men or for brutes? The 
plentiful and exhilarating fruit of the vine and the 
olive tree are entirely useless to beasts. They know 
not the time for sowing, tilling, or for harvest, nor of 
laying up and preserving their stores ; man alone has 
the care and advantage of these things. Thus, as the 
lute and the pipe were made for those who are capable 
of playing on them, so it must be allowed the produce 
of the earth was designed for those only who make use 
of them ; and though some beasts may rob us of a small 
part, it does not follow that the earth produced it also 
for them. Men do not store up corn for mice and 
ants, but for their wives, their children, and all their 
families ; beasts therefore, as I said before, possess it 
by stealth, but their masters openly and freely; it is 
for us then that nature has provided this great 
abundance. 

Can there be any doubt that this plenty and variety 
of fruit, which delight not only the taste, but the smell 
and sight, was by nature intended for men only ? 
Beasts are so far from being partakers of this design, 
that we see even themselves were made for man ; for 
of what utility would sheep be, unless for their wool*, 
which, when dressed and wove, serves us for clothing ; 
for they are not capable of anything, not even of pro- 
curing their own food, without the care and assistance 



a We may suppose from this passage that mutton was in no repute, since 
sheep are here said to be good for nothing but. their wool. 



154 



OF THE NATURE 



BOOK II. 



of man. The fidelity of the dog, his affectionate 
fawning on his master, his aversion to strangers, his 
sagacity in finding game, and his vivacity in pursuit 
of it, what do these qualities denote but that he was 
created for our use ? Shall I mention oxen ? We 
perceive their backs were not formed for carrying 
burthens, but their necks were naturally made for 
the yoke, and their strong broad shoulders to draw 
the plough. In the golden age, which poets speak 
of, they were so greatly beneficial to the husbandman 
in tilling the fallow ground, that no violence was ever 
offered them, and it was even thought a crime to eat 
them ; 

The iron age began the fatal trade 
Of blood, and hammer'd the destructive blade ; 
Then men began to make the ox to bleed, 
And on the tamed and docile beast to feed b . 

I should be too tedious to relate the advantages we 
receive from mules and asses, which undoubtedly were 
designed for our use. What is the swine good for 
but to eat? whose life, Chrysippus says, was given it 
but as salt to keep it from putrefying ; and as it is 
proper food for man, nature has made no animal 
more fruitful. What a multitude of birds and fishes, 
which are taken by the art and contrivance of man 
only, and which are so delicious to our taste that one 
would be tempted sometimes to believe that our pro- 
vidence was an Epicurean. Though we think there 



b The Latin version of Tully is a translation from the Greek of Aratus. 

c Chrysippus's meaning is, that the swine is so inactive and slothful a 
beast, that life seems to be of no use to it but to keep it from putrefaction, 
as salt keeps dead flesh. This conceit of Chrysippus may be justly ranked 
under some species of wit. 



book ii. OF THE GODS. 155 

are some birds, the allies and oscines A , as our augurs 
call them, which were made merely to foretell events. 
The large savage beasts we take by hunting, either 
for food, to exercise ourselves in imitation of martial 
discipline, to use those we can tame and instruct, as 
elephants 6 , or to extract remedies for our diseases and 
wounds, as we do from certain roots and herbs, the 
virtues of which are known by long use and expe- 
rience. 

Represent to yourself the whole earth and seas as 
if before your eyes ; you will see the vast and fertile 
plains, the thick shady mountains, the immense pas- 
turage for cattle, and ships sailing over the deep with 
incredible celerity ; nor are our discoveries only on the 
face of the earth ; but in its secret recesses there are 
many useful things, which, being made for man, by 
man alone can be discovered. 

Another, and in my opinion the strongest, proof, 
that the providence of the gods takes care of us, is 
divination ; which both of you perhaps will attack ; 
you, Cotta, because Carneades took pleasure in in- 
veighing against the Stoics ; and you, Velleius, be- 
cause there is nothing Epicurus ridicules so much as 
the prediction of events ; yet the truth of divination 
appears in many places, on many occasions, often in 
private, but particularly in public concerns. We re- 
ceive many intimations from the foresight and presages 
of augurs and aruspices ; from oracles, prophecies, 

d Ales, in the general signification, is any large bird j and oscinis is any 
singing bird. But they here mean those birds which are used in augury; 
alites are the birds whose flight was observed by the augurs, and oscines the 
birds from whose voices they augured. 

e The elephant is mentioned here for the use it was of in war, and for its 
superior understanding to other brutes. 



156 OF THE NATURE book ii. 

dreams, and prodigies ; and it often happens that by 
these means events have proved happy to men, and 
imminent dangers have been avoided f . This know- 
ledge, therefore, call it either a kind of transport or 
an art, or a natural faculty, is certainly found only 
in men, and is a gift only from the immortal gods. 

If these proofs, when taken separately, should make 
no impression upon your mind, yet when collected 
together they must certainly affect you. 

Besides, the gods not only provide for mankind 
universally, but for particular men. You may bring 
this universality to a less number, and that less number 
to particulars. For if the reasons I have given prove 
that the gods take care of all men, in every country, 
in every part of the world separate from our continent, 
they take care of those who dwell on the same land 
with us, from east to west ; and if they regard those 
who inhabit this kind of great island, which we call 
the globe of the earth, they have the like regard for 
those who possess the parts of this island, Europe, 
Asia, and Africa ; and therefore they favour the parts 
of these parts, as Rome, Athens, Sparta, and Rhodes ; 
and particular men of these cities, separate from the 



f These, and some which follow, are strange arguments for the proof of a 
deity, and that man is his peculiar care. The Epicureans justly exploded 
these superstitions of the Stoic. Nature is constant in her operations, and 
God cannot favour one man without injustice to another ; for favour implies 
partiality ; where there is favour there is attachment ; God has none but to 
what is right. Weak men often call that favour which is only justice, and 
frequently impute to divine providence the regular operations of nature. If 
particular instances of God's regard to chosen men are proofs of his divine 
providence, and care of human kind, what are the sufferings of other per- 
sons, equally good, proofs of? The answer is obvious enough to men of 
common sense, and fools are incapable of confutation. God loves no men 
aibitiaiily because he loves them. 



book ii. OF THE GODS. 157 

whole ; as Curius, Fabricius, Coruncanius, in the war 
with Pyrrhus; in the first Punic war, Calatinus, 
Duillius, Metellus, Lutatius; in the second, Maximus, 
Marcellus, Africanus ; after these, Paullus, Gracchus, 
Cato ; and in our fathers' times, Scipio, Laelius ; Rome 
also and Greece have produced many illustrious men, 
whom we cannot believe were so without the assistance 
of the deity ; which is the reason that the poets, 
Homer in particular, joined their chief heroes, Ulysses, 
Agamemnon, Diomedes, Achilles, to certain deities, as 
companions in their adventures and dangers. Be- 
sides, the frequent appearances of the gods, as I have 
before mentioned, demonstrate their regard for cities 
and particular men ; this is also apparent indeed from 
the foreknowledge of events, which we receive either 
sleeping or waking. We are likewise forewarned of 
many things by the entrails of victims, by presages 
and many other means, which have been long ob- 
served with such exactness, as to produce an art of 
divination. There never therefore was a great man 
without divine inspiration. If a storm should damage 
the corn or vineyard of a person, or any accident 
should deprive him of some conveniencies of life, we 
should not judge from thence that the deity hates or 
neglects him. The gods take care of great things 
and disregard the small. To truly great men all 
things ever happen prosperously 8 ; as has been suffi- 
ciently treated of by us Stoics as well as by Socrates, 
the prince of philosophers, in his discourses on the 
infinite advantages arising from virtue. 

This is almost the whole that has occurred to my 

S This assertion is contradicted by almost every day's experience. 



158 OF THE NATURE, ETC. book ii. 

mind on the nature of the gods, and what I thought 
proper to advance. Do you, Cotta, if I may advise, 
defend the same cause. Remember that in Rome 
you keep the first rank ; remember you are pontifex ; 
and as your sect is at liberty to dispute on which side 
you please h , do you rather take mine, and reason on 
it with that eloquence which you acquired by your 
rhetorical exercises, and which the Academy improved ; 
for it is a pernicious and impious custom either seriously 
or seemingly to argue against the gods. 



h As the Academics doubted everything, it was indifferent to them 
which side of a question they took. Balbus advises Cotta to take his side 
of the question, and reminds him, in a polite manner, of the dignity of his 
character, as a caution to him to treat the subject with all due respect. 



OV THE 



NATURE OF THE GODS 



BOOK III. 

WHEN Balbus had ended his discourse, says Cotta, 
with a smile, you direct me too late which side to de- 
fend ; for through the course of your argument I was 
thinking what objections to make, not so much for the 
sake of opposition, as of obliging you to explain what 
I did not perfectly comprehend ; and as every one may 
use his own judgment, it is scarce possible to make 
your ideas the rule of mine. How great, says Velleius, 
is my impatience to hear. Since our friend Balbus was 
highly delighted with your discourse against Epicurus, 
I ought in my turn to be solicitous to hear what you 
can say against the Stoics ; for I believe you are, as 
usual, well prepared for the engagement. I wish, by 
Hercules, I was, replies Cotta; for it is more difficult 
to dispute with Balbus than it was with you. Why so, 
says Velleius. Because, replies Cotta, your Epicurus, 
in my opinion, does not contend strongly for the gods ; 
he only, to avoid any censure or punishment, is afraid 
to deny their existence ; for when he asserts that the 
gods are wholly inactive and regardless of everything, 
that they have limbs like ours, but make no use of them, 
he seems to jest with us, and to think it sufficient if he 
allows that there are beings happy and eternal. But 



160 OF THE NATURE book. it. 

with regard to Balbus, I suppose you observed how 
many things were said by him, which, however false 
they may be, yet have a perfect coherence and con- 
nection; therefore my design, as I said, in opposing 
him, is not so much to confute his principles as to in- 
duce him to explain what I do not clearly understand : 
for which reason, Balbus, I will give you the choice, 
either to answer me every particular as I go on, or 
permit me to proceed without interruption. If you 
want any explanation, replies Balbui, I had rather you 
would propose your doubts singly ; but if your intention 
be rather to confute me than for your own instruction, it 
shall be as you please ; I will either answer you imme- 
diately to every point, or stay till you have finished 
your discourse. Very well, says Cotta, then let us 
proceed as our conversation shall direct. 

But before I enter on the subject, I have a word 
to say concerning myself; for I am greatly influenced 
by your authority, and your exhortation, at the conclu- 
sion of your discourse, to remember I was Cotta and 
pontifex; by which, I presume, you intimated that I 
should defend the religion and ceremonies which we 
received from our ancestors : truly I always have and 
always shall defend them, nor shall the arguments 
either of the learned or unlearned ever remove the 
opinions I have imbibed from them concerning the 
worship of the immortal gods. In matters of religion I 
submit to the rules of the high priests T. Coruncanius, 
P. Scipio, and P. Scaevola; not to the sentiments of 
Zeno, Cleanthes, or Chrysippus ; and I pay a greater 
regard to what C. Laelius, one of our augurs and wise 
men, has written concerning religion, than to the most 
eminent of the Stoics ; and as the religion of the 



BOOK III. 



OF THE GODS. 161 



Romans at first consisted in sacrifices and divination 
by birds, to which have since been added predictions, 
if the interpreters a of the sibylline oracle or the arus- 
pices have foretold any event from portents and pro- 
digies, I ever thought these articles should not be de- 
spised ; I have been even persuaded that Romulus, by 
instituting divination, and Nuraa, by establishing sacri- 
fices, laid the foundation of Rome, which undoubtedly 
would never have risen to such a height of grandeur, 
if the gods had not been made propitious by this wor- 
ship. 

These, Balbus, are my sentiments, both as a priest 
and as Cotta. But you must bring me to your opinion 
by the force of your reason; for a philosopher should 
prove to me the religion he would have me embrace ; 
but I must believe the religion of our ancestors without 
any proof b . 

What proof, says Balbus, do you require of me ? 

You have proposed, says Cotta, four articles. 
First, that there are gods. Secondly, what they are. 
Thirdly, that the universe is governed by them. 
Lastly, that they regard mankind in particular. Thus, 
if I remember rightly, you divided your discourse. 



a The keepers and interpreters of the sibylline oracles were the quinde- 
cemviri. 

b I believe I may venture to assert that this is the only reason that most 
people can give for being tenacious of the religion in which they were 
educated. Le Bruyn gives us this account of the religion of the Tartars of 
Siberia; it consists in making an offering once a year; for which purpose 
they assemble in the woods and kill a beast of each kind, though their offer- 
ings are chiefly horses and a sort of goats. Having flayed them, they hang 
them on a tree and then fall down before them, and afterwards eat the flesh 
and return home. If they are asked a reason for this their worship, they 
say they had it from their forefathers, and that is sufficient for them. 

M 



162 OF THE NATURE book hi. 

Exactly so, replies Balbus; but let us see what you 
require. 

Let us examine, says Cotta, every proposition. The 
first, that there are gods, cannot be contested but by 
the most impious ; nay, though it can never be rooted 
out of my mind, yet I believe it on the authority of our 
ancestors, and not on the proofs you have brought. 
Why do you expect a proof from me, says Balbus, if 
you believe it ? Because, says Cotta, I come to this dis- 
putation as if I had never thought of the gods or heard 
anything concerning them. Take me as a disciple 
wholly ignorant, and answer to my questions. Begin 
then, replies Balbus. I would first know, says Cotta, 
why you have been so long in proving the existence of 
the gods, which you said was a point so very evident 
to all, that there was no need of any proof? In that, 
answers Balbus, I have followed your example, whom 
I have often observed, when pleading in the Forum, to 
load the judge with all the arguments which the nature 
of your cause would permit. This also is the practice 
of philosophers, and I have a right to follow it. Be- 
sides, you may as well ask me why I look upon you 
with two eyes, since I can see you with one. You 
shall judge then yourself, says Cotta, if this be a very 
just comparison ; for when I plead I do not dwell 
upon any point agreed to be self-evident, because long 
reasoning only serves to confound the clearest matters ; 
besides, though I might take this method in pleading, 
yet I should not make use of it in such a discourse as 
this, which requires the nicest distinction ; and with 
regard to your making use of one eye only when you 
look on me, there is no reason for it, since together 
they have the same view ; and since nature, to which 



book in. OF THE GODS. 163 

you attribute wisdom, has been pleased to give us two 
passages by which we receive light. But because you 
did not think that the existence of the gods was so 
evident as you could wish, you therefore brought so 
many proofs. It was sufficient for me to believe it on 
the tradition of our ancestors ; and since you disregard 
authorities, and appeal to reason, permit my reason to 
defend them against yours. The proofs on which you 
found the existence of the gods, tend only to render a 
proposition doubtful, that, in my opinion, is not so ; I 
have not only retained in my memory the whole of 
these proofs, but even the order in which you pro- 
posed them. 

The first was c , that when we lift up our eyes to- 
wards the heavens we immediately conceive there is 
some divinity that governs those celestial bodies ; on 
which you quoted this passage, 

Look up to the refulgent heav'n above, 
Which all men call, unanimously, Jove d . 

intimating that we should invoke that as Jupiter, rather 
than our Capitoline Jove e , or that it is evident to the 
whole world that those bodies are gods, which Velleius 
and many others do not place in the rank even of ani- 
mated beings. 

Another strong proof, in your opinion, was, that 
the belief of the existence of the gods was universal, 
and mankind was daily more convinced of it. What! 
should an affair of such importance be left to the deci- 



c See book ii. p. 69. d Ibid, 

e The popular name of Jupiter in Rome, being looked upon as defender 
of the capital (in which he was placed ) and stayer of the state. 

M 2 



164 OF THE NATURE book hi. 

sion of fools f , who, by your sect especially, are called 
madmen ? 

But the gods g have appeared to us; as to Posthu- 
mius at the lake Regillus, and to Vatienus in the Sala- 
rian Way ; something you mentioned too, I know not 
what, of a battle of the Locrians at Sagra. Do you 
believe that the Tyndaridae h , as you called them, that 
is, men sprung from men, and were buried in Lacedae- 
mon, as we learn from Homer 1 , who lived in the next 
age, do you believe, I say, that they appeared to Va- 
tienus on the road mounted on white horses, without 
any servant to attend them, to tell the victory of the 
Romans to a country fellow rather than to M. Cato, 
who was at that time the chief person of the senate? 
Do you take that print of a horse's hoof, which is now 
to be seen on a stone at Regillus, to be made by Cas- 
tor's horse ? Should you not believe, what is probable, 
that the souls of eminent men, such as the Tyndaridae, 
are divine and immortal, rather than that those bodies, 
which had been reduced to ashes, should mount on 
horses and fight in an army? Tf you say that was pos- 

f Cotta means the multitude, the common run of people, the great vulgar 
and the small, which he says are by the Stoics called fools, and those fools 
madmen. Fools and madmen have been, and still are, thought synony- 
mous by many. They both indeed think and act repugnant to reason ; and 
so far they are alike : but the most material difference between them is this, 
the errors of madmen (what we commonly call madmen) arise from mis- 
taking themselves; the errors of (what we commonly call) fools, from mis- 
taking things. Nothing surely can be more absurd than appealing to popu- 
lar opinion for the truth of a religion. If popularity were to decide, the 
Christian religion must yield to the Mohammedan. 

g See p. 70. 

h Castor and Pollux ; called Tyndaridae from Tyndarus. Castor is said 
to be the son of Jupiter by Leda. Pollux and Helen are said to be the 
children of Tyndarus by Leda, 

1 In his Iliad. 



book in. OF THE GODS. 165 

sible, you ought to show how it is so, and not amuse us 
with fabulous stories. 

Do you take these for fabulous stories ? says Balbus. 
Is not the temple, built by Posthumius in honour of 
Castor and Pollux, to be seen in the Forum ? Is not 
the decree of the senate concerning Vatienus k still sub- 
sisting ? As to the affair of Sagra, it is a common pro- 
verb among the Greeks 1 ; when they would affirm any 
thing strongly, they say, " it is as certain as what passed 
at Sagra." Ought not such authorities to move you ? 
You oppose me, replies Cotta, with stories, but I ask 
reasons of you. 

[Some passages of the original are here wanting. 
Cotta continues speaking against the doctrine of the 
Stoics.] 

We are now to speak of predictions. No one can 
avoid what is to come, and indeed it is commonly 
useless to know it; for it is a miserable case to be 
afflicted to no purpose, and not to have even the last, 
the common comfort, hope, which according to your 
principles none can have ; for you say that fate 
governs all things, and call that fate which has been 
true from all eternity. What satisfaction therefore, or 
what caution, can it be to us to know anything that is 
to come, since it will come inevitably? 

But whence comes that divination ? To whom is 
owing that knowledge from the entrails of beasts ? Who 
first made observations from the voice of the crow? 



k That is as much as to say, is not such a story, or such a religion, made 
true by act of parliament? 

1 As we say, when we earnestly assert the truth of anything, "It is as 
true as the Gospel." 



166 OF THE NATURE book hi. 

Who invented the lots" 1 ? Not that I give no credit to 
these things, or that I despise Attius Navius's staff, 
which you mentioned ; but I ought to be informed 
how these things are understood by philosophers, 
especially as the diviners are often wrong in their 
conjectures. 

But physicians, you say, are likewise often mistaken. 
What comparison can there be between divination, of 
the principles of which we are ignorant, and physic, 
which is a known art ? 

You believe that the Decii n , in devoting themselves 
to death, appeased the gods. How great then was the 
iniquity of the gods, that they could not be appeased 
but at the price of such noble blood ; that was a strata- 
gem ; but a stratagem worthy such illustrious leaders, 
who consulted the public good even at the expense of 
their own lives ; they conceived rightly, what indeed 
happened, that if the general rode furiously upon the 
enemy, the whole army would follow his example. 

As to the voice of the Fauns, I never heard it ; if you 
assure me you have, I shall believe you ; though I am 
absolutely ignorant what a Faun is. 

Truly, Balbus, you have not yet proved the exist- 
ence of the gods ; I believe it, indeed, but not from 
any arguments of the Stoics. 

Cleanthes, you said, attributes the idea that men 
have of the gods to four causes. The first is (what I 



m The word sortes is often used for the answers of the oracles, or rather 
for the rolls in which the answers were written. 

n Three of this eminent family sacrificed themselves for their country; 
the father iu the Latin war, the son in the Tuscan war, and the grand- 
son, in the war with Pyrrhus. 



book in. OF THE GODS. 167 

have sufficiently mentioned) to a foreknowledge of 
future events ; the second, to tempests and other 
shocks of nature ; the third, to the utility and plenty 
of things we enjoy ; the fourth, to the invariable order 
of the stars and the heavens. Foreknowledge I have 
already answered. With regard to tempests in the 
air, the sea, and the earth, I own that many people are 
affrighted by them, and imagine that the immortal 
gods are the authors of them. But the question is not 
whether there are people who believe there are gods, 
but whether there are gods or not? As to the two other 
causes of Cleanthes, one of which is derived from the 
plenty we enjoy, the other from the invariable order 
of the seasons and the heavens, I shall treat on them 
when I answer your discourse concerning the provi- 
dence of the gods; a point, Balbus, upon which you 
have spoken largely. I shall likewise defer till then 
your argument of Chrysippus, that if there is in nature 
anything which surpasses the power of man, there must 
consequently be some being better than man ; as also 
your comparison of the world to a fine house, your 
observations on the proportion and harmony of the uni- 
verse, and your smart short reasons of Zeno ; I shall 
examine at the same time your physics concerning that 
vital heat, which you regard as the principle of all 
things ; and what you advanced the other day on the 
existence of the gods/ and on the sense and under- 
standing which you gave to the sun, the moon, and all 
the stars ; and I shall often ask you this question ; by 
what proofs are you convinced there are gods ? 

I thought, says Balbus, it had been proved; but 
such is your manner of opposing, that, when you seem 
to interrogate me, and I am preparing to answer, you 



168 OF THE NATURE book hi. 

suddenly divert the discourse, and give me no oppor- 
tunity for it; thus are those most important points 
concerning divination and fate neglected ; which we 
Stoics have thoroughly examined, and you have only 
slightly touched upon. But they are not thought 
essential to the question in hand ; therefore, if you 
think proper, do not blend them together, that we may 
end clearly this our present dispute. Very well, says 
Cotta ; since you have divided the whole question into 
four parts, and I have spoken what I had to say on the 
first, I will take the second into consideration ; in 
which, when you attempted to show what the gods are, 
you seemed to me to show there are none ; for you said 
that it was the greatest difficulty to draw our minds 
from the prepossessions of the eyes ; that as nothing is 
more excellent than the deity, you did not doubt that 
the world was god, because there is nothing better in 
nature than the world, so we may reasonably think it 
animated, or rather perceive it in our minds as clearly 
as if it was obvious to our eyes. 

Now, in what sense do you say there is nothing 
better than the world ? If you mean beautiful, I agree 
with you. If that there is nothing more adapted to 
our wants, I likewise agree with you ; but if you mean 
that nothing is wiser than the world, I am by no means 
of your opinion. Not that I find it difficult to conceive 
anything in my mind, independent of my eyes ; on the 
contrary, the more I conceive in my mind only, the less 
I am able to comprehend your opinion. 

Nothing is better than the world, you say. Nor is 
there, indeed, anything on earth better than the city 
of Rome ; do you think therefore that our city has a 
mind ; that it thinks and reasons ; or that this most 



book in. OF THE GODS. 169 

beautiful city, being void of sense, is not preferable to 
an ant, because an ant has sense, understanding, 
reason, and memory? 

You should consider, Balbus, what ought to be 
allowed you, and not advance things because they 
please you. What I mean is that old, and as it 
seemed to you that acute, syllogism of Zeno, which 
you have so much enlarged upon. That which reasons 
is preferable to that which does not; nothing is prefer- 
able to the world ; therefore the world reasons. If 
you would prove also that the world can very well read 
a book, follow the example of Zeno and say, that which 
can read is better than that which can not; nothing is 
better than the world ; the world therefore can read. 
After the same manner you may prove the world to be 
an orator, a mathematician, a musician, that it pos- 
sesses all sciences, and in short is a philosopher. You 
have often said that god made all things, and that no 
cause can produce an effect unlike itself . From hence 
it will follow, not only that the world is animated and is 
wise, but also plays upon the fiddle and the flute, 
because it produces men who play on those instru- 
ments. 

Zeno, therefore, the chief of your sect, advances no 
argument to induce us to think the world reasons, or 
indeed that it is animated, consequently none to think 
it a deity; though it may be said there is nothing 
better, as there is nothing more beautiful, nothing more 
useful to us, nothing more adorned, and nothing more 
regular in its motions. 

That is, unlike its original kind, as a man will produce a man ; a dog, a 
dog; a cedar, a cedar, etc. Every seed bringing forth the fruit which is in 
that seed. 






170 OF THE NATURE book nr. 

But if the world, in its universality, is not god, you 
should not surely deify, as you have done, that infinite 
multitude of stars which so delight you with the regu- 
larity of their eternal courses ; not but that there is 
something truly wonderful and incredible p in their con- 
stancy ; but the regularity of motion, Balbus, may as 
well be ascribed to a natural as to a divine cause. 
What can be more regular than the flux and reflux of 
the Euripus q at Chalcis, the Sicilian sea, and the 
violence of the ocean in those parts r ; 

Where the rapid tide 
Does Europe from the Libyan coast divide. 

The same appears on the Spanish and British coasts. 
Must we conclude that some deity appoints and directs 
these ebbings and Sowings to certain fixed times ? Con- 
sider, I pray, that if everything which is regular in its 
motion is deemed divine, tertian and quartan agues 
must likewise be so, as their returns have the greatest 
regularity. These effects are to be explained by 
reason; but, because you are unable to assign any, 
you have recourse to a deity as your last refuge. 

The arguments of Chrysippus appeared to you of 
great weight; a man undoubtedly of great quickness and 
subtilty (I call those quick who have a sprightly turn of 
thought, and those subtile whose minds are seasoned by 
use as their hands are by labour) ; if, says he, there is 
anything which is beyond the power of man to pro- 



p I cannot think that the Academic has made a good choice 0/ a word, in 
calling what is evident, incredible. 

1 The Euripus is a narrow sea between Bceotia and Eubcea, which is 
said to ebb and flow seven times a day. 

r The straits of Gibraltar. 



book in. OF THE GODS. 171 

duce, the being who produces it is better than man. 
Man is unable to make what is in the world ; the being 
therefore that could do it is superior to man. What 
being is there but a god superior to man? therefore 
there is a god. These arguments are founded on the 
same erroneous principles as Zeno's, for he does not 
define what is meant by being better or more excellent, 
or distinguish between an intelligent cause and a na- 
tural cause. 

Chrysippus adds, if there are no gods, there is 
nothing better than man; but we cannot, without the 
highest arrogance, have this idea of ourselves. Let us 
grant that it is arrogance in man to think himself 
better than the world ; but to comprehend that he has 
understanding and reason, and that in Orion and Cani- 
cula there is neither, is no arrogance but an indication 
of good sense. 

Since we suppose, continues he, when we see a 
beautiful house, that it was built for the master and not 
for mice, we should likewise judge that the world is 
the mansion of the gods. Yes, if I believed that the 
gods built the world ; but I believe, and I shall prove, 
that it is the work of nature. 

Socrates, in Xenophon, asks whence had man his 
understanding, if there was none in the world ? And 
I ask, whence had we speech, harmony, singing; un- 
less we think it is the sun conversing with the moon 
when she approaches near it, or that the world forms 
an harmonious concert, as Pythagoras imagines ? 

This, Balbus, is the effect of nature ; not of that 
nature which proceeds artificially, as Zeno says, and 
which I shall presently examine into, but a nature 
which, by its own proper motions and mutations, modi- 



172 OF THE NATURE book hi. 

fies everything. For I readily agree to what you said, 
that all parts are firmly bound and united together, as 
it were, by ties of blood ; but I do not approve of what 
you added, that it could not possibly be so unless en- 
dued with a divine spirit. On the contrary, the whole 
subsists by the power of nature, independently of the 
gods, and there is a kind of sympathy (as the Greeks 
call it) which joins together all the parts of the uni- 
verse, and the greater that is in its own power, the less 
is it necessary to have recourse to a divine intelligence. 

But how will you get rid of the objections which 
Carneades made. If, says he, there is no body 
immortal there is none eternal ; but there is no body s 
immortal, nor even indivisible, or that cannot be sepa- 
rated ; and as every animal is in its nature passive, 
they are subject to the impressions of extraneous 
bodies ; and if every animal is mortal, there is none 
immortal ; so likewise, if every animal may be divided, 
there is none indivisible, none eternal ; but all are 
affected by external power ; every animal therefore is 
necessarily mortal, dissoluble, and divisible. 

As there is no wax, no silver, no brass, which cannot 
be converted into something else, whatever is composed 
of them may cease to be what it is ; by the same reason, 
if all the elements are mutable, every body is mutable. 
Now, according to your doctrine, all the elements are 
mutable ; all bodies therefore are mutable. But if 
there was any body immortal, all bodies would not be 
mutable. Every body then is mortal ; for every body 
is either water, air, fire, or earth, or composed of the 



* Carneades means that no body is immortal in its manner 01" existence ; 
the modification of all body being, in his opinion, mutable. 



booK in. OF THE GODS. 173 

four elements together, or of some of them. Now 
there is nothing of all these that do not perish ; for 
earthly bodies are fragile ; water is so soft that the least 
shock will separate its parts, and fire and air yield to 
the least impulse, and are subject to dissipation ; be- 
sides, any of these elements perish when converted 
into another nature; as when water is formed from 
earth, the air from water, and the sky from air; and 
when they change in the same manner back again. 
Therefore, if there is nothing but what is perishable 
in the composition of all animals, there is no animal 
eternal. 

But, not to insist on these arguments, there is no 
animal to be found that had not a beginning and will 
not have an end ; for every animal being sensitive, they 
are consequently all sensible of cold and heat, sweets 
and bitters ; nor can they have pleasing sensations 
without being subject to the contrary. As therefore 
they receive pleasure, they likewise receive pain ; and 
whatever being is subject to pain, must necessarily be 
subject to death ; it must be allowed, therefore, that 
every animal is mortal. 

A being that is not sensible of pleasure or pain can- 
not have the essence of an animal ; if then, on the one 
hand, every animal must be sensible of pleasure and 
pain, and if, on the other, every being that has these 
sensations cannot be immortal, we may conclude that 
as there is no animal insensible, there is none im- 
mortal. 

Besides, there is no animal without inclination and 
aversion ; an inclination to that which is agreeable to 
nature, and an aversion to the contrary ; there are for 
every animal some things which they covet, and others 



174 OF THE NATURE book hi. 

they reject ; what they reject are repugnant to their 
nature, and consequently would destroy them. Every 
animal therefore is inevitably subject to be destroyed. 

There are innumerable arguments to prove that 
whatever is sensitive is perishable ; for cold, heat, 
pleasure, pain, and all that affects the sense, when 
they become excessive, cause destruction ; since then 
there is no animal that is not sensitive, there is none 
immortal. 

The substance of an animal is either simple or com- 
pounded ; simple, if it is only of earth, of fire, of air, or 
of water (and of such a sort of being we can form no 
idea); compounded, if it is formed of different elements, 
which have each their proper situation, and have a 
natural tendency to it ; this to the highest, that to the 
lowest, and another to the middle. This conjunction 
may for some time subsist, but not for ever ; for every 
element must return to its first situation ; no animal 
therefore is eternal. 

Your sect, Balbus, allow fire only to be the sole 
active principle ; an opinion which I believe you have 
from Heraclitus, whom some men understand in one 
sense, some in another ; but since he seems to be un- 
willing to be understood, we will pass him by. You 
Stoics then say, that fire is the universal principle of all 
things ; that all living bodies are animated by heat ; 
and that the extinction of that heat deprives them of 
life. 

Now I cannot conceive that bodies should perish for 
want of heat rather than for want of moisture or air, 
especially as they even die through excess of heat ; so 
that the life of animals does not depend more on fire 
than on the other elements. However, let us see to 



book in. OF THE GODS. 175 

what this tends. If I am not mistaken, you believe 
that in all nature there is nothing but fire which is 
self-animated. Why fire rather than air, of which the 
life of animals consists, and which is called from thence 
anima 1 , the soul? Do you take it for granted that life 
is nothing but fire? It seems more probable that it is 
a compound of fire and air. 

But if fire is self-animated, unmixed with any other 
element, it must be sensitive, because it renders our 
bodies sensitive ; and the same objection which I just 
now made will arise, that whatever is sensitive must 
necessarily be susceptible of pleasure and pain, and 
whatever is sensible of pain is likewise subject to the 
approach of death ; therefore you cannot prove fire to 
be eternal. 

You Stoics hold that all fire has need of nourish- 
ment, without which it cannot possibly subsist; that 
the sun, moon, and all the stars, are fed either with 
fresh or salt waters; and the reason that Cleanthes 
gives why the sun is retrograde, and does not go 
beyond the tropics in the summer or winter, is, that 

' The common reading is ex quo anima dicitur ; but Dr. Davis and M. 
Bouhier prefer animal, though they keep anima in the text, because our 
author says elsewhere animvm ex anima dictum, Tusc. 1. 1. Cicero is not 
here to be accused of contradictions; for we are to consider that he speaks 
in the characters of other persons; but I see nothing in these two passages 
irreconcileable, and am inclined to think anima the right word here. The 
meaning is plainly this ; why is fire called self-animated, rather than air, 
of which the life (for animus is used here, and immediately after, as vita) of 
animals consists, and from which it is called anima, the life or soul ? I am 
the more confirmed in this reading from our author's using the adjective 
animalis a little before in the same sense with ceria, where he says, aut him- 
plex est natura animaniis, ut vel ierrena sit, vel ignea, vel animalis vel hu- 
mida, etc. The strength of the argument turns chiefly on the double signi- 
fication of the Latin word anima, which sometimes signifies air, sometimes 
life or soul. 



176 OF THE NATURE book in. 

he may not be too far from his sustenance. This I shall 
fully examine hereafter : but at present we may con- 
clude that whatever may cease to be, cannot of its own 
nature be eternal ; that if fire wants sustenance it will 
cease to be ; and that therefore fire is not of its own 
nature eternal. 

After all, how can we imagine a deity that is not 
graced with one single virtue? Must we not attribute 
prudence to a deity? a virtue which consists in the 
knowledge of things good, bad, and indifferent. What 
need has a being for the discernment of good and ill 
who neither has nor can have any ill? Of what use is 
reason and understanding? They serve us indeed to 
find out things obscure by those which are clear to us ; 
but there is no obscurity to a deity. As to justice, 
which gives to every one his own, it is not the concern 
of the gods ; since that virtue, according to your doc- 
trine, received its birth from men and from civil society. 
Temperance consists in abstinence from corporeal 
pleasures, and if such abstinence has a place in heaven, 
so also must the pleasures. Lastly, if fortitude be as- 
cribed to the deity, how does it appear? In afflictions, 
in labour, in danger? These affect him not. How 
then can we conceive this to be a deity that makes no 
use of reason, nor is endowed with any virtue. 

When I consider what is advanced by the Stoics, my 
contempt for the ignorant vulgar vanishes. These are 
their divinities. The Syrians worshipped a fish. The 
Egyptians consecrated beasts of almost every kind. 
The Greeks deified many men; as Alabandus" at 

u He is said to have led a colony from Greece into Caria in Asia, and to 
have built a town and called it after his own name, for which his country- 
men paid him divine honours after his death. 



book in. OF THE GODS. 177 

Alaband ; Tenes x at Tenedos ; and all Greece pay divine 
honours to Leucothea y , who was before called Ino, to 
her son Palaemon, to Hercules, to iEsculapius, and to 
the Tyndaridse z ; our people to Romulus, and to many 
others, whom, as citizens newly admitted into the 
ancient body, they imagine have been received into 
heaven. 

These are the gods of the illiterate ! How much 
more reasonable are the notions of you philosophers? 
I shall pass them over; for they are excellent surely. 
Let the world then be a deity, for that I conceive is 
what you mean by 

the refulgent heav'n above, 
Which all men call, unanimously, Jove. 

But why are we to add many more gods? What a 
multitude of them there is! at least it seems so to me; for 
every constellation according to you is a deity ; to some 
you give the names of beasts, as the goat, the scorpion, 
the bull, the lion; to others the names of inanimate 
things, as the ship, the altar, the crown. But sup- 
posing these were to be allowed, how can the rest be 
granted, or even so much as understood ? When we 
call corn Ceres, and wine Bacchus, we make use of the 

x Tenes was a son of Cygnus, and built a temple at Tenedos, an isle in 
the ^Egean sea, and was afterwards consecrated himself. 

y The story which is told of Ino is, that when she saw her husband 
Athamas in his madness slay one son, she caught the other up in her arms, 
and threw herself and him into the sea, and they were afterwards wor- 
shipped as deities of the ocean ; she by the name of Leucothea, and he by 
the name of Palaemon. These were worshipped, as Cotta says, by all 
Greece, which, with other instances mentioned here, is sufficient to show 
the absurdity of founding an argument on the popularity of any religion 
for the truth of it. 

z Castor and Pollux. 

N 



178 OF THE NATURE book hi. 

common manner of speaking; but do you think any 
one so mad as to believe that his food a is a deity? 

With regard to those whom, you say, from men be- 
came gods, I should be very willing to learn of you, 
either how it was possible formerly, or, if it had ever 
been, why it is not so now? I do not conceive, as 
things are at present, how Hercules, 

Burnt with fiery torches on mount (Eta, 



as Accius says, should rise, with the flames, 

To the eternal mansions of his father. 

Besides, Homer also says that Ulysses b met him in 
the shades below, amongst the other dead. 

But yet I should be glad to know which Hercules 
we should chiefly worship ; for they who have searched 
into those histories which are but little known, tell us 
of several. The most ancient is he who fought with 
Apollo about the tripos of Delphi, and is son of Jupiter 
and Lisyto; and of the most ancient Jupiters too, for 
we find many Jupiters also in the Grecian chronicles. 
The second is the Egyptian Hercules, and is believed 
to be the son of Nilus, and to be the author of the 



a What would the Academic think of the doctrine of transubstantiation, 
was he now living? 

b Our great author is under a mistake here. Homer does not say he met 
Hercules himself, but his eidwiXov, his visionary likeness ; to which he adds 
this material circumstance : 

ovtoq St fiST aQavaroKTi Qtoloi 
T£p7T£rcu iv OaXiyg, Kai !%« Ka\\L<T<pvpov"}I(3t)v. 

He banquets with the gods, and by his side 

Fair Hebe sits, his ever-blooming bride. Odyssey. 



book in. OF THE GODS. 179 

Phrygian characters . The third to whom they offered 
sacrifices, is one of the Idcei Dactyli A . The fourth is 
the son of Jupiter and Asteria, the sister of Latona, 
chiefly honoured by the Tyrians, who pretend that 
Carthago 6 is his daughter. The fifth, called Belus, is 
worshipped in India. The sixth is the son of Alcinena 
by Jupiter; but by the third Jupiter, for there are 
many of them, as you shall soon see. 

Since this examination has led me thus far, I will 
convince you that in matters of religion the pontifical 
rites, the customs of our ancestors, and the vessels of 
Numa f , which Lselius mentions in his little golden 
oration, are more to be depended on than the doctrine 
of the Stoics; for tell me, if I were of your sect, what 
answer could I make to these questions ? If there are 
gods, are nymphs also goddesses? if they are god- 
desses, are Pans and Satyrs in the same rank? but 
these are not; consequently nymphs are not goddesses. 
Yet they have temples publicly dedicated to them. 



c P. Hardouin communicated the following note upon this passage to 
the Abbe d'Olivet. Fictus Hie Hercules, non alius quam Moses est ; quern 
mater exposuit in carecti fiuminis Niti, et reipsa JEgyptius fuit, et literas 
Judaicas, sive libros legum rerumque Hebraicarum conscripsit hoc est, Penta- 
teuchum. Dieuntur autem ex literce Phrygice, quoniam succensis a Nabu- 
chodonosora Hierosolymis JudcEusfuit (ppvyeig, crematus, seu tostus. 1 shall 
make no remark upon this conceit of Hardouin, but leave it to the reader. 

d They are said to have been the first workers in iron. They were called 
Id<ei because they inhabited about mount Ida in Crete, and Dactyli from 
ActKTvXoi (the fingers) their number being five. Diodorus Siculus and 
Strabo both mention a Hercules amongst them. We have a title of a poem, 
remaining amongst the titles of the lost works of Hesiod, called Idtei 
Dactyli. 

e From whom, some say, the city of that name was called. 

f Capeduncula seem to have been bowls, or cups, with handles on each 
side, set apart for the use of the altar. Davis. 

N 2 



180 OF THE NATURE book hi. 

What do you conclude from thence? Others who have 
temples are not therefore gods. 

But let us go on. You call Jupiter and Neptune 
gods ; their brother Pluto then is one ; and if so, those 
rivers also are deities, which they say flow in the 
infernal regions, Acheron, Cocytus, Pyriphlegethon ; 
Charon, also, and Cerberus are gods; but that cannot 
be allowed ; nor can Pluto be placed amongst the 
deities ; how then can his brothers ? 

Thus reasons Carneades ; not with any design to 
destroy the existence of the gods (for what would less 
become a philosopher?), but to convince us that, on 
that matter, the Stoics have said nothing plausible. 

If then Jupiter and Neptune are gods, adds he, can 
that divinity be denied to their father Saturn, who is 
principally worshipped throughout the west ? If Saturn 
is a god, then must his father Heaven be one ; and the 
parents of Heaven, which are the Sky and Day, must 
be deities too, as also their brothers and sisters, which, 
by ancient genealogists, are thus named g : Love, Deceit, 
Fear, Labour, Envy, Fate, Old Age, Death, Darkness, 
Misery, Lamentation, Favour, Fraud, Obstinacy, the 
Destinies, the Hesperides, and Dreams; which are all 
the offsprings of Erebus and Night. These monstrous 
deities, therefore, must be received, or those from whom 
they sprung be disallowed. 

If you say that Apollo, Vulcan, Mercury, and the 
rest of that sort, are gods, can you doubt the divinity 
of Hercules, ./Esculapius, Bacchus, Castor, and Pollux? 
These are worshipped as much as those, and even 

s This mythological stuff is more largely to be seen in the Theogony of 
Hesiod, and in Apollodorus. 



book in. OF THE GODS. 181 

more in some places. Therefore they must be num- 
bered among the gods, though on the mother's side 
they are not of race divine. 

Aristaeus, said to be the son of Apollo, and to have 
found out the art of making oil from the olive ; The- 
seus, the son of Neptune ; and the rest, whose fathers 
were deities, shall they not be placed in the number of 
the gods? 

But what think you of those whose mothers were 
goddesses ! they surely have a better title to divinity ; 
for, in the civil law, as he is a freeman who is born of 
a freewoman, so, in the law of nature, he whose mother 
is a goddess, must be a god h . The isle Astypalaea 
religiously honour Achilles : and if he is a deity, 
Orpheus and Rhesus are so, who were born of one of 
the muses ; unless perhaps there may be a privilege 
belonging to sea-marriages which land-marriages have 
not. Orpheus and Rhesus are nowhere worshipped, 
and if they are therefore not gods, how are the other 
deities ? You, Balbus, seemed to agree with me that 
the honours they received were not from their being 
regarded as immortals, but as men replete with other 
virtues. 

Since you think Latona a goddess, will you not allow 
Hecate to be one also, who was the daughter of Aste- 
ria, Latona's sister? Certainly; if we may judge by the 
altars erected to her in Greece. And if Hecate is a 
goddess, can you refuse that rank to the Eumenides ; 
for they also have a temple at Athens, and, if I under- 
stand right, the Romans have consecrated a grove to 
them. The Furies too, whom we look upon as the 

h This is a pleasant ridicule of the Greek and Roman theology. 



182 OF THE NATURE book hi. 

inspectors into, and scourges of, impiety, I suppose 
must have their divinity. 

As you hold that there is some divinity presides 
over every human affair, there is one destined for 
childbirths, whose name is derived, a nascentibus, from 
nativities, and to whom we used to sacrifice in our pro- 
cessions in the fields of Ardaea ; but if she is a deity, 
we must likewise acknowledge all those you mentioned, 
Honour, Faith, the Mind, Concord ; by the same rule 
also Hope, Juno Moneta 5 , and every idle phantom, 
every child of our imagination, are deities. But as this 
consequence is not probable, do not then defend the 
cause from which it flows. 

What say you to this ? If these are deities, which we 
worship and regard as such, why are not Serapis k and 
Isis placed in the same rank ? And if they are admitted, 
what reason have we to reject the gods of the barba- 
rians? Thus we should deify oxen, horses, the ibis, 
hawks, asps, crocodiles, fishes, dogs, wolves, cats, and 
many other beasts. If we go back to the source of 
this superstition, we must equally condemn all the 
deities from which they proceed. 

Shall Ino, whom the Greeks call Leucothea, and we 
Matuta, be reputed a goddess, because she was the 
daughter of Cadmus, and shall that title be refused to 
Circe and Pasiphae •, who had the Sun for their father, 



' See Cicero de Divinatione and Ovid. Fast. 

k In the consulship ofPiso and Gabinins, sacrifices to Serapis and Isis 
were prohibited in Rome ; but the Roman people afterwards placed them 
again in the number of their gods. See TertulJian's Apol. and his first book 
nd Nationes, and Amobius, lib. 2. Davis. 

1 In some copies Circe, Pasiphae, and A\:v are mentioned together; but 
j'Eae is rejected by the most judicious editors. 



book in. OF THE GODS. 183 

and Perseis, daughter of the Ocean, for their mother? 
It is true Circe has divine honours paid her by our 
colony of Circaeum, therefore you call her a goddess ; 
but what will you say of Medea, the granddaughter 
of the Sun and the Ocean, and daughter of ./Eetes and 
Idyia? What will you say of her brother Absyrtus m , 
whom Pacuvius calls iEgialeus, though the other name 
is more frequent in the writings of the ancients ? If you 
did not deify one as well as the other, what will 
become of Ino? for all these deities have the same 
original n . 

Shall Amphiaraus and Tryphonius be called gods ? 
Our publicans , when some lands in Bceotia were 
exempted from the tax, as belonging to the immortal 
gods, denied that any were immortal who had been 
men. But if you deify these, Erectheus p surely is a 
god, whose temple and priest we have seen at Athens. 
And can you then refuse to acknowledge also Codrus q 
and many others, who shed their blood for the pre- 



m Absyrtus was the brother of Medea, whose limbs she tore in pieces, 
and scattered them to stop her father's pursuit after her, when she fled with 
Jason. 

n That is, the religion of the vulgar. 

° Amphiaraus and Tryphonius were worshipped in Bceotia ; and when 
the fields in which they were worshipped were exempted by the cen- 
sors from paying tribute to the Romans, the publicans, or collectors of 
the tax, excepted against their divinity. See Bayle's Dictionary; art. 
Amphiaraus. 

p He was an Athenian king, and is said to have sacrificed one of his 
daughters, upon the oracle's saying that the Athenians should overcome the 
Thracians, if Erectheus sacrificed one of his daughters. He afterwards 
sacrificed his other three daughters, who all voluntarily offered themselves 
for the good of their country. 

i Codrus was the last king of Athens; who in a disguise exposed him- 
self to the enemy and was killed, because the oracle said, that they should 
get the victory whose general should happen to be slain. 



184 OF THE NATURE book hi. 

servation of their country ? Either allow this divinity to 
all or to none. 

It is easy to observe likewise, that if many have paid 
divine honours to the memory of those who have 
signalized their courage, it was to animate others to 
virtue, and to expose themselves the more willingly to 
dangers in their country's cause. From this motive the 
Athenians have deified Erectheus and his daughters, 
and have erected also a temple called Leocorion, to 
the daughters of Leus r . Alabandus is more honoured 
in the city s which he founded, than any of the more 
illustrious deities; from thence Stratonicus* had a 
pleasant turn, as he had many, when he was troubled 
with an impertinent fellow, who insisted that Ala- 
bandus was a god, but that Hercules was not ; very 
well, says he, then let the anger of Alabandus fall 
upon me, and that of Hercules upon you. Do you not 
consider, Balbus, to what lengths your arguments for 
the divinity of the heaven and the stars will carry you? 
you deify the sun and the moon, which the Greeks 
take to be Apollo and Diana. If the moon is a deity, 
the morning-star, the other planets, and all the fixed 
stars are also deities ; and why shall not the rainbow 
be placed in that number? for it is so wonderfully 
beautiful, that it is justly said to be the daughter of 
Thaumas u . But if you deify the rainbow, what regard 

r They were three, and are said to have^averted a plague by offering 
themselves as a sacrifice. Where these horrid superstitions prevailed, how 
easy was it for the oracle to remove any innocent obnoxious person ! Or, 
where a man was not easy to be removed, to wound him by obliging him 
to sacrifice a favourite child. 

s Alabanda, a city in Caria. 

1 Plutarch mentions some of the facetious sayings of Stratonicus, who 
was a musician. Davis. 

u So called from the ( iieek word Oavfid'Cio, miror, to wonder. 



book in. OF THE GODS. 185 

will you pay to the clouds, for the colours x which 
appear in the bow are only formed of the clouds, one 
of which is said to have brought forth the centaurs y ; 
and if you deify the clouds, you cannot pay less regard 
to the seasons, which the Roman people have really 
consecrated ; tempests, showers, storms, and whirl- 
winds must then be deities. It is certain, at least, that 
our captains used to sacrifice to the waves before they 
embarked. 

As you deify the earth under the name of Ceres z , 
and the ocean under that of Neptune ; rivers and 
fountains have the same right. Thus we see that 
Maso, the conqueror of Corsica, dedicated a temple to 
a fountain; and the names of the Tiber, Spino, Almo, 
Nodinus, and other neighbouring rivers, are in the 
prayers a of the augurs ; therefore, either the number of 
such deities will be infinite, or we must admit none of 
them, and wholly disapprove of such an endless series 
of superstition. 

I proceed, Balbus, to answer those who say that, 
with regard to those deified mortals, so religiously and 
devoutly reverenced, the public opinion should have 
the force of reality. 

To begin then; they who are called theologists say 
there are three Jupiters ; two of Arcadia, one of which 
was the son of iEther and father of Proserpine and 

x The Mosaic account of the cause of the rainbow is abundantly erro- 
neous, if we give credit to ancient and modern observations. 

y This alludes to the story of Ixion, who is said to have begot the cen- 
taurs on a cloud, with which Jupiter deceived him, when he attempted to 
lie with Juno, by putting a cloud before him in her likeness. 

z She was first called Geres, from gero to bear. 

a The word is precatione, which means the books, or forms of prayer, 
used by the augurs. 



18G OF THE NATURE book hi. 

Bacchus ; another the son of Heaven and father of 
Minerva, who is called the goddess and inventress of 
war ; the third, born of Saturn in the Isle of Crete b , 
where his sepulchre is shown . 

The sons of Jupiter also, among the Greeks, have 
many names ; first, the three who at Athens have the 
title of Anactes d , Tritopatreus, Eubuleus, and Diony- 
sius, sons of the most ancient king Jupiter and Proser- 
pine ; the next are Castor and Pollux, sons of the third 
Jupiter and Leda; and lastly, three others, by some 
called Alco e , Melampus, and Emolus, sons of Atreus 
the son of Pelops. 

As to the muses, there were at first four, Thelxiope, 
Acede, Arche, and Melete, daughters of the second 
Jupiter ; afterwards there were nine f , daughters of the 
third Jupiter and Mnemosyne; there were also nine 
others, having the same appellations, born of Pierus 
and Antiopa, by the poets usually called Pieridae and 
Pieriae. 

Though sol (the sun) is so called, you say, because 
he is solus, single ; yet how many suns do theologists 
mention? There is one the son of Jupiter and grandson 

b Cotta's intent here, as well as in other places, is to show how unphi- 
losophical their civil theology was, and with what confusions it was em- 
barrassed; which design of the Academic the reader should carefully keep 
in view, or he will lose the chain of argument. 

c This may be looked upon as a scriptural language of the Greeks ; 
similar to which we find an expression frequently used in the Jewish scrip- 
ture, where it is often said, " and his sepulchre is seen even to this day." 

d Anactes, "Avaicrtg, was a general name for all kings, as we find in the 
oldest Greek writers, and particularly in Homer. 

e The common reading is Aleo; but I follow Lambinus and Davis, who 
had the authority of the best manuscript copies. 

f Calliope, Clio, Erato, Thalia, Melpomene, Terpsichore, Euterpe, Poly- 
hymnia, and Urania; of whose birth, names, and powers, Hesiod, in his 
Tlicogony, gives a very poetical description. 



book in. OF THE GODS. 187 

of iEther ; another the son of Hyperion ; a third 
who, the Egyptians say, was of the city Heliopolis, 
sprung from Vulcan the son of Nilus ; a fourth is said 
to have been born at Rhodes of Acantho, in the times 
of the heroes, and was the grandfather 8 of Jalysus, 
Camirus, and Lindus; a fifth, of whom it is pretended 
JEita. and Circe were born at Colchis. 

There are likewise several Vulcans. The first (who 
had of Minerva that Apollo whom the ancient histo- 
rians call the tutelary god of Athens), was the son of 
Ccelum; the second, whom the Egyptians call Opas h , 
and whom they looked upon as the protector of Egypt, 
is the son of Nilus; the third, who is said to have been 
the master of the forges at Lemnos 1 , was the son of the 
third Jupiter and of Juno; the fourth, who possessed 
the islands near Sicily, called Vulcanise, was the son of 
Menalius. 

One Mercury had Ccelum for his father and Dies k 
for his mother ; another, who is said to dwell in a 
cavern, and is the same as Trophonius, is the son of 
Valens and Coronis. A third, of whom, and of Pene- 
lope, Pan was the offspring, is the son of the third 
Jupiter and Maia. A fourth, whom the Egyptians 
think it a crime to name 1 , is the son of Nilus. A fifth, 



g Avus is the word in most editions, but Arnobius says that the fourth 
was the father of Jalysus, whom Acantho bore at Rhodes in the times of 
the heroes. Davis. 

h Some prefer Phthas to Opas. See Dr. Davis's edition ; but Opas is 
the generally received reading. 

' One of the islands called Cyclades, in the iEgean sea. 

k Some parts of nature are clothed in this prosopopoeia, of the Firmament 
and the Day being the parents of Mercury. 

1 Similar to this is the Jewish superstition about a certain word. Davis. 



188 OF THE NATURE book hi. 

whom they call in their language Thoth, as with them 
the first month of the year is called, is he whom the 
people of Pheneum worship m , and who is said to- have 
killed Argus, to have fled for it into Egypt, and to 
have given laws and learning to the Egyptians. 

The first of the iEsculapii, the god of Arcadia, who 
is said to have invented the probe and bandages, is the 
son of Apollo. The second, who was killed with 
thunder, and is said to be buried in Cynosura 11 , is 
brother of the second Mercury. The third, who is 
said to have found out the art of purging, and of 
drawing teeth, is the son of Arsippus and Arsinoe ; in 
Arcadia are shown his tomb and the wood which is 
consecrated to him near the river Lusiunu 

I have already spoken of the most ancient of the 
Apollos, who is the son of Vulcan, and tutelar god of 
Athens. There is another, son of Corybas, and native 
of Crete, for which island he is said to have contended 
with Jupiter himself. A third, who came from the 
regions of the Hyperborei to Delphi, is the son of the 
third Jupiter and of Latona. A fourth was of Arca- 
dia, whom the Arcadians called Nomio p , because they 
regarded him as their legislator. 

There are likewise many Dianas. The first, who is 
thought to be the mother of the winged Cupid, is the 
daughter of Jupiter q and Proserpine. The second, 
who is more known, is daughter of the third Jupiter 



m A town in Arcadia. 

n In Arcadia. 

° A northern people. 

P So called from the Greek word i>6[iog, lex, a law. 

i That is, of Jupiter Infernus, as Pluto is often called. 



book in. OF THE GODS. 189 

and of Latona. The third, whom the Greeks often 
call by her father's name, is the daughter of Upis r and 
Glauce. 

There are many also of the Dionysi s . The first was 
the son of Jupiter and Proserpine. The second, who 
is said to have killed Nysa, was the son of Nilus. The 
third, who reigned in Asia, and for whom the Sabazia* 
were instituted, was the son of Caprius. The fourth, 
for whom they celebrate the Orphic festivals u , sprung 
from Jupiter and Luna. The fifth, who is supposed 
to have instituted the Trieterides x , was the son of 
Nysus and Thyone. 

The first Venus, who has a temple at Elis y , was the 
daughter of Ccelum and Dies. The second arose out 
of the froth of the sea, and had by Mercury the 
second Cupid. The third, the daughter of Jupiter 
and Diona, was married to Vulcan, but is said to have 
had Anteros 2 by Mars. The fourth was a Syrian, 



r He is called y Q7rtg in some old Greek fragments, and Ovttlq by Calli- 
machus, in his Hymn on Diana. 

s Bacchus was called Dionysus. 

1 2a/3a£io£ Sabazius, is one of the names used for Bacchus, as we see it 
in the comedies of Aristophanes ; and in the beginning of his comedy called 
20r)/cfc, Vespee, verse the ninth, it is used for wine, as the word Bacchus is 
sometimes poetically used : 

vttvoq fi f'x fl ri £ iK 2a/3a£tou. 



" A drowsiness from Sabazius possesses me ;" that is, " wine has made me 
sleepy." 

" Sacred rites instituted to Bacchus by Orpheus. 

x The Trieterides were rites so called, because they were performed 
every three years. Davis. 

y A city in Peloponnesus. 

z Anteros is the name of one of the Cupids. "Epwc "Apmq /xvOoXoytiTat 
mog, says the etymologist; that is, Eros (Cupid) is fabled to be the son of 
Mars. 



190 OF THE NATURE book hi. 

born of Tyro a who is called Astarte, and is said to 
have been married to Adonis. 

I have already mentioned one Minerva, mother of 
Apollo. Another, who is worshipped at Sais, a city of 
Egypt, sprung from Nilus. The third, whom I have 
also mentioned, was daughter of Jupiter. The fourth 
sprung from Jupiter and Coryphe, the daughter of the 
Ocean ; the Arcadians call her Coria, and make her the 
inventress of chariots. A fifth, whom they paint with 
wings at her heels, was daughter of Pallas, and is said 
to have killed her father, for endeavouring to violate 
her chastity. 

The first Cupid is said to be the son of Mercury 
and the first Diana. The second of Mercury and the 
second Venus. The third, who is the same as Anteros, 
of Mars and the third Venus. 

All these opinions arise from old stories, that were 
spread in Greece ; the course of which, Balbus, you 
well know, ought to be stopped, lest religion should 
suffer. You Stoics, so far from refuting, give them 
authority, by the mysterious sense which you pretend 
to find in them. Can you then think, after this plain 
refutation, there is need to employ more subtle rea- 
sonings b ? 

But to return from this digression. We see that 
the mind, faith, hope, virtue, honour, victory, health, 



a There is in ancient authors the name of Tyro, a Thessalian, on whom 
Neptune is said to have begot Neleus and Pelias. 

b M. le P. Bouhier, in his remark on this passage, suspects that there is 
a little hiatus here. The abbe d'Olivet thinks there is nothing wanting but 
a transposition of the words. He reads it thus, Vestri autem man modo har 
non refellunt, verum etiam confirmant, interpret a ndo, quorsum quidque perti- 
neat. Num censes igitur subtiliore ratione opus esse ad ha:c refellendu ? Sed 
eojam, unde hue digressi sunrus, revertamur. Nam mentem, fidem, etc. 



book in. OF THE GODS. 191 

concord, and things of such kind, are purely natural, 
and have nothing of divinity in them ; for either they 
are inherent in us, as the mind, faith, hope, virtue, and 
concord ; or to be desired, as honour, health, and vic- 
tory. I know indeed they are useful to us, and see 
that statues have been religiously erected for them ; 
but as to their divinity, I shall begin to believe it when 
you have proved it. Of this kind I may particularly 
mention fortune, ever inseparable from inconstancy and 
temerity, which are certainly unworthy a divine being. 
But what delight do you take in the explication of 
fables, and in the etymology of names ! That Ccelum 
was castrated by his son c , and that Saturn was bound 
in chains by his son ! By your defence of these, and 
such-like fictions, you would make the authors of them 
appear not only to be no fools, but to be very wise 
men. But the pains you take in your etymologies 
deserve our pity. That Saturn is so called because, 
se saturat annis, he is full of years ; Mavors, Mars, 
because, magna vortit, he brings about mighty changes; 
Minerva, because, minuit, she diminishes, or because, 
minatur, she threatens ; Venus, because venit ad omnia, 
she comes to all ; Ceres, a gerendo, from bearing. How 
dangerous is this method ! for there are many names 
would puzzle you. From what would you derive 
Vejupiter d and Vulcan? Though, indeed, if you can 
derive Neptune, a nando, from swimming, in which you 
seem to me to swim yourself more than Neptune, you 
may easily find the origin of all names, since it is 
founded only upon the conformity of some one letter. 

c Saturn. 

d He was worshipped by the Romans that he might do them no harm, 
not through any hopes of his doing good. 



192 OF THE NATURE book hi. 

Zeno is put to the unnecessary trouble first, and 
after him Cleanthes and Chrysippus, of explaining- 
mere fables, and giving reasons for the several appel- 
lations of every deity ; which is really owning, that 
those we call gods are not the representations of 
deities, but natural things, and that to judge otherwise 
is an error; yet this error has so much prevailed, that 
pernicious things have not only the title of divinity 
ascribed to them, but have even sacrifices offered to 
them ; for Fever has a temple on the Palatine e hill, 
and Orbona f another near that of the Lares (the house- 
hold gods); and we see on the Exquiline g hill an altar 
consecrated to Ill-fortune. 

Let all such errors be banished from philosophy, if 
we would advance in our dispute concerning the im- 
mortal gods, nothing unworthy immortal beings. I 
know myself what I ought to believe; which is far dif- 
ferent from what you have said. You take Neptune 
for an intelligence pervading the sea. You have the 
same opinion of Ceres, with regard to the earth. I 
cannot, I own, find out, or in the least conjecture, what 
that intelligence of the sea or the earth is. To learn 
therefore the existence of the gods, and what they are, 
I must apply elsewhere, not to the Stoics. 

Let us proceed to the two other parts of our dispute. 
First, whether there is a divine providence which go- 
verns the world ; and lastly, whether that providence 
particularly regards mankind : for these are the re- 
maining propositions of your discourse; and I think, if 



e Palatium is one of the seven hills on which Rome was built. 
f A goddess, who, according to the signification of her name, was said to 
deprive them of their children. 

8 Exquilia? is another of the seven hills. 



book in. OF THE GODS. 193 

you approve of it, we should examine these more ac- 
curately. With all my heart, says Velleius, for I 
readily agree to what you have hitherto said, and 
expect still greater things from you. 

I am unwilling to interrupt you, says Balbus to 
Cotta, but we will take another opportunity, and I shall 
effectually convince you. But 

[Here is a wide chasm in the original. What is lost probably may 
have contained great part of Cotta's arguments against the providence 
of the Stoics. Some of his arguments against a providence over par- 
ticulars seem unanswerable; but I cannot think that all his quota- 
tions from the dramatic poets much illustrate what he advances 
against the usefulness of reason. As reason is that which leads the 
human mind to truth, that motion of the mind which does not lead 
to truth cannot be called reason, though there may appear a chain of 
thought in it. 

Abbe d'Olivet, in his remarks upon this hiatus (which, for the 
benefit of the English reader, I have translated), says, that " we are 
unfortunately deprived of all the arguments of Cotta on the third 
proposition of Balbus, and part of his answer to the fourth. 

" I cannot see any justice in the accusation against the primitive 
Christians, of having torn this passage out of all the manuscripts. 
What appearance is there, that through a pious motive they should 
erase this any more than many others in the same book, which they 
must undoubtedly have looked upon as no less pernicious ? 

" Arnobius, lib. 3, gives us room to suspect the pagans ; for he 
informs us, that they were greatly incensed at some of Tully's books, 
which could be no other than those concerning the Nature of the 
Gods,, and Divination ; insomuch that they insisted on a solemn 
edict from the senate h to suppress and forbid the reading them, as 
favouring too much the Christian religion, and tending towards the 
subversion of paganism. 

"Arnobius did not care for saying that these books directly proved 
the Christian religion, but only indirectly in the blow which they 

h Oportere statui per senatum, aboleantur ut htzc scripta, quibus Christiana 
religio comprobetur et vetustatis opprimatur auctorhas. 

O 



194 OF THE NATURE book in. 

gave to idolatry ; and indeed what could attribute more to the open- 
ing the eyes of the pagans, and bringing them to an acknowledgment 
of their error, than what Tully here says in the person of Cotta? 
Their false gods are attacked by a Roman, by an augur, by an 
ancient and venerable consul. What could they say ? Who could 
shut the mouth of one of their own priests ; one who had been 
initiated into their sacred mysteries? For that reason, without 
doubt, this work was sentenced to the flames, with the Holy Bible, 
under the emperor Diocletian, according to a remark 1 of cardinal 
Baronius. 

" But it is of no great importance whether we should impute the 
loss of this passage to Christian or pagan zeal ; perhaps we can in 
justice accuse time only of this robbery, which has deprived us of so 
many other valuable books ; however, it would not be amiss, on this 
occasion, to look over the two passages of this work preserved by 
Lactantius, and to endeavour, if possible, to supply the rest by our 
conjectures. 

"The first passage cited by Lactantius, Div. Inst. lib. ii. cap. 3, 
runs thus : Intelligebat Cicero, falsa esse, qua homines adorarent ; 
nam cum multa dixisset, qua ad eversionem religionum valerent, ait 
tamen, non esse ilia vulgo disputanda, ne susceptas publice religiones 
disputatio talis extinguat. Cicero imagined that the religion which 
prevailed in the minds of men was erroneous; for though he said 
many things which would tend to the subversion of religion, yet he 
said that point should not be disputed by the vulgar, lest such dis- 
putation should extinguish public received religions. 

"The second passage cited by Lactantius, ibid. cap. 8, is as fol- 
lows : Cicero de natura deorum disputans, sic ait ; primum igitur non 
est probabile, earn materiam rerum, unde orta sunt omnia, esse divina 
providentia effectam ; sed habere, et habuisse, vim et naturam suam. 
Ut igitur faber, cum quid adificaturus est, non ipsefacit materiam, sed 
ea utitur qua sit parata ; fictorque item cera ; sic isti providentia di- 
vines materiam prcesto esse oportuit, non quam ipse faceret, sed quam 
haberet paratam. Quod si non est a deo materia facta, ne terra qui- 
dem, et aqua, et aer, et ignis, a deo f actus est. * Tully, disputing con- 
cerning the nature of the gods, says, it is not probable that matter, 

1 Ad annum 302. nvtn. 67. 



book in. OF THE GODS. 195 

whence all things spring, should be the work of a divine providence, 
but a substance entirely depending on its own nature and strength. 
As neither the builder when he builds, nor the potter when he 
moulds, makes the materials himself, but uses those prepared for 
him, so there must necessarily be a matter, not made by, but prepared 
for the use of, divine providence. If therefore this matter is not the 
work of god, so neither is the earth, water, air, or fire/ 

"As to the first of these passages, it is entirely clear; but the 
second, in which this proposition is confuted, viz. that matter, 
whence all things are formed, was made by divine providence, re- 
quires some explanation, lest we might from thence infer, that Tully 
had a true notion of the creation, properly so called. 

"In order to judge of the reasonableness of this consequence, let 
us remember that Tully here attacks a Stoic. The Stoics held that 
fire, which they believed to be an intelligent being, was the sole 
active principle which formed the water, the earth, and the air ; so 
that the last three elements were, properly speaking, only different 
modifications of the first. This we read in the second book. 

" When therefore it is here said that matter, whence all things are 
formed, was made by divine providence, we are not by this to under- 
stand that the divine providence did in reality create, or draw out of 
nothing, this matter, but only modified it, and by the arrangement of 
its parts, which were before mixed and confounded, made the water, 
the earth, the air, and that gross body which we call fire. 

" It may perhaps be objected that, by these words, earn materia?}/ 
rerum esse divina providentia effectam, that matter is the work of 
divine providence, we are to understand the creation, properly so 
called, and that therefore my explanation is forced; to which I 
answer first, that to persuade us that Cicero had an opinion so very 
singular concerning the creation, an opinion which we meet with in 
no other part of his works, there is need of greater authority than a 
single passage, to which both the preceding and subsequent argu- 
ments are wanting. Secondly, I answer, that if the dispute is about 
the creation, properly so called, Cicero must forget against whom he 
is disputing ; since, if the objection is about the creation, such an 
objection, so far from having been made to him by Balbus, is directly 
opposite to the principles of Balbus. 

" Let us return then to the true sense of this passage, which may 

o2 



196 OF THE NATURE book hi. 

probably help us to discover the method which Cicero took to refute 
the Stoics. We ought not, says he, to attribute the modifications of 
matter to a divine providence according to the Stoics, but to suppose 
in matter an intrinsic natural power, which renders all its modifica- 
tions possible and necessary. Primum igitur non est probabile, earn 
materiam rerum, unde orta sunt omnia, esse divina providentia effectam ; 
sed habere, et habuisse, vim et naturam suam. 

" Such was Strato's system. No other principle of existence than 
the mechanic laws of an inanimate nature. All things are matter, 
and each particle of matter has a natural gravity, which, by its im- 
pulse, causes its necessary motions, from whence all its different 
modifications result. He himself (Strato) having studied every part 
of the universe, asserts that whatever is, or will be, must exist by 
motion and gravity. These are Cicero's words, Acad. Disp. 4. 38. 
Ipse autem (Strato) singulas mundi partes per -sequens, quicquid aut sit, 
autjiat, naturalibus fieri, aut factum esse docet ponder ibus et motibus. 

<l Besides this passage of Lactantius, by which we perceive that 
Cicero opposes the Stratonic to the StGic system, I have observed 
elsewhere, that Cicero explained himself enough on that head in the 
remainder of his third book. 

" But let us enter into a larger detail, and see, as far as we possibly 
can, upon what this confutation of the Stoics turns. In order to this 
we should remember that Balbus, in lib. 2, endeavours to prove the 
providence of the gods, on the foundation of three reasons. 

" 1 . That the existence of the gods being once acknowledged, it 
follows that the world is governed by their wisdom. It may be easily 
supposed, that Cotta, denying the principles of the Stoics, would also 
deny their consequences; denying the gods to be such as the Stoics 
believed them, he would consequently deny the providence of those 
gods. 

"2. That all being submitted to an intelligent nature, which placed 
the world in an exceeding fine order, it follows that all have been 
formed by animated principles. It is here, without doubt, that Cotta 
would show the system of Strato in its strongest light. But can he 
say anything that is reasonable to prove, that a world so well com- 
posed, so well governed, is the production of an inanimate nature ? 
All that the successors of Cotta, all that impious men have said on 
this subject is to be lamented. 



book in. OF THE GODS. 197 

" 3. The wonders that heaven and earth present to our eyes. It is 
easy for an Academic, who seeks only to combat with the most evi- 
dent truths, to find something that might be mended in the construc- 
tion of this world, considered only with respect to its usefulness to 
man in particular; Cottahas not failed to employ his best eloquence 
to dazzle mankind by arguments, such as are used by Lucretius in 
his fifth book, from verse 157 to 235, and Cicero himself, in his Aca- 
demical Questions, lib. iv. cap. 38. Why so many plants? Why so 
many venomous beasts? Why so many barren lands? Why hail 
and storms that spoil the harvests ? Why falls the rain into the sea, 
while the sands of Libya burn ? Why such an innumerable quantity 
of stars in the night, since no one, nor all of them together, can fur- 
nish us with light sufficient to guide us, when the sun is at a dis- 
tance ? These, and a hundred more impertinent questions may be 
asked, when man would measure by his own weakness the infinite 
wisdom of the creator, and the natural perfection of his works. 

" This is pretty near what can be brought into this third part, 
where Cotta is to confute the reasons by which Balbus would prove 
to him that a divine providence has made the world, and continues 
to govern it. 

" As to the fourth part, the beginning of which is wanting, if we 
should fill up the space by our own conjectures, we must follow the 
same method we have done in the examination of the third. We 
must begin with an exact analysis, which will set before us all the 
proofs that are given by Balbus. These are reduced to the four fol- 
lowing. 1. The structure of our bodies. 2. The perfections of our 
souls. 3. The usefulness of all that is in the world to us. 4. Divers 
examples of illustrious men who have been protected in a singular 
manner by the gods. 

" Cicero, to preserve that air of freedom in his discourse which 
conversation requires, does not in this place take up the proofs of 
Balbus in the same order that they have been laid, down ; for this 
reason we have not the confutation of the third, although we have 
that of the second and fourth; but it is easy to see what might be 
made of the first and third, by a rhetorician, who studies to embellish 
paradoxes. 

" In short, although the mechanism of the human body may be ad- 
mirable, yet it must be confessed, that eloquence has a vast field to 



198 OF THE NATURE book hi. 

range in, if she would describe our infirmities, our diseases, and our 
bodily wants. Cicero, Quest. Acad. iv. 27, carries the excess of his 
Pyrrhonism so far as to doubt whether man can be the work of an 
intelligent power. Etiamne hoc affirmare potes, Luculle, esse aliquam 
vim, cum prudentia et consilio scilicet, qua: finxerit, vel, ut tuo verbo 
utar, qua fabricata sit hominem ? 

" I will not stop to show how the third proof of Balbus might be 
refuted. Cotta, to answer the detail which Balbus has given of 
things that are useful to us in the world, needs only give another of 
such things as are useless, or even pernicious. When there is no 
fixed principle, like the Christian faith, there is hardly anything but 
arguments may be advanced for and against it. 

" It is by the invariable maxims of our faith, that we ought to 
fortify ourselves against the vain subtleties of impious men ; and I 
will employ here only the words of holy writ, to destroy the reflec- 
tions of Cotta to the second and fourth proofs of Balbus. 

" He answers to the second, that human reason being oftener the 
cause of vice than of virtue, it is not to be believed that it can be a 
present from the divine goodness. Let us not make an apology for 
our reason ; we have every moment proof of its weakness. But let 
us remember, that its defects come k not from its creator; that these 
are the consequences of the sin committed by the first man ; that we 
are 1 the children of wrath, conceived in iniquity; but that notwith- 
standing this we m may do everything by the grace of him who 
strengthens us. 

" In short, to attack the fourth proof of Balbus, Cotta opposes 
him by saying, that there are many crimes successful while virtue 
suffers. Others besides Cotta, the greatest saints, have raised" the 
same difficulty. There is only the Christian can answer it; the Chris- 
tian knows no real good, but virtue ; no real ill, but sin. The pros- 
perity of the wicked is no scandal to him. He knows that it will 
fade as a dream, and that the greater it has been, the more miserable p 



k It is said after the creation of man, viditque deus cuncta qua fecerut, 
et erant valde bona. Gen. i. 31. 

1 Ephes. ii. 3. Psalm 1. 7. >» i Cor. xv. 10. Philip, iv. 13. 

n Job, xxi. 7. Jer. xii.- 1. ° Psalm lxxi. 10. 

p Rev. xviii. 7. 



book in. OF THE GODS. 199 

will be its consequences. If God permits him to suffer, he looks 
upon it q as a happiness; he rejoices 1 *, he glories s in it. For what 
proportion l have his present pains to the future glory with which he 
shall be clothed ! I make use only of the holy scriptures that I may 
anticipate the bad impressions which the discourse of Cotta might 
make on a Christian who might not always have the maxims of our 
faith in his memory. In matters of religion, when we have any doubt 
to overcome, or any difficulties to resolve, the way of divine authority 
is much better for us than that of reasoning. It is more sure, and 
more short. Our reason by itself is commonly more ingenious at 
leading us into snares, than at drawing us out of them. 

" I am next to take notice, that Cicero, being willing to show how 
men might abuse their wit, begins here with examples taken out of 
some scraps of ancient tragedies ; but I must confess that these frag- 
ments do not appear to me to be capable of a turn that would make 
them relished in France." 

The reader will here observe that the learned Frenchman draws up 
his conclusion with knocking reason down, and setting up scripture 
as the sole rule of faith and conduct; but, as he rejects reason, he 
offers none for his great rule.] 

Shall I adore, and bend the suppliant knee, 
Who scorn their power, and doubt their deity u l 

Does not Niobe here seem to reason, and by that 
reasoning to bring all her misfortunes upon herself? 
But what a subtle expression is the following ! 

On strength of will alone depends success ; 
A maxim capable of leading us into all that is bad. 

i Matth. v. 5. r James, i. 2. 

8 Galat. vi. 14. l Rom. viii. 18. 

u Niobe is in this passage persisting in her contention with Latona. 
Niobe was wife to Amphion, king of Thebes, by whom she had seven sons 
and seven daughters. She is said to have preferred herself to Latona, be- 
cause of the number and beauty of her children. Latona had but two, 
which were Apollo and Diana, whom, as the nonsensical story continues, 
Latona spirited on to slay the children of Niobe ; and Niobe herself was 
turned into a stone. 



200 OP THE NATURE book iik 

Though I'm confin'd, his malice x yet is vain, 
His tortured heart shall answer pain for pain, 
His ruin soothe my soul with soft content, 
Lighten my chains, and welcome banishment ! 

This now is reason ; that reason, which you say the 
divine goodness has denied to the brute creation, 
kindly to bestow it on men alone. How great, how 
immense the favour ! Observe the same Medea flying 
from her father and her country ; 

The guilty wretch from her pursuer flies. 
By her own hands the young Absyrtus* slain, 
His mangled limbs she scatters o'er the plain ; 
That the fond sire might sink beneath his woe, 
And she to parricide her safety owe. 

Reflection, as well as wickedness, must have been 
necessary to the perpetration of such a fact ; and did 
he too 2 , who prepared that fatal repast for his brother, 
do it without reflection ? 

Revenge, as great as Atreus' injury, 
Shall sink his soul and crown his misery*. 

Did not Thyestes himself, not content with having 
defiled his brother's bed (of which Atreus with great 
justice thus inveighs, 

When faithless consorts in the lewd embrace 
With vile adultery stain a royal race, 

x Medea speaking of her father iEetes. 

y Her brother ; whose limbs she is said to have divided and scattered in 
the way, when her father ^Eetes pursued her as she fled with Jason. 

1 Atreus ; who invited his brother to a feast, and served up his brother's 
children at the banquet, in revenge to Thyestes for having corrupted his 
wife. 

a Our author quotes these two verses in his third book de Oratore, and in 
his Tusculan Disputations. They are taken, the learned say, from the 
Atreus of Accius, as are those which follow. 



book in. OF THE GODS. 201 

The blood thus mix'd in fouler currents flows, 
Taints the rich soil and breeds unnumber'd woes), 

did he not, I say, by that adultery aim at the posses- 
sion of the crown ? Atreus thus continues, 

A lamb, fair gift of heav'n, with golden fleece b , 
Promis'd in vain to fix my crown in peace ; 
But base Thyestes, eager for the prey, 
Crept to my bed and stole the gem away. 

Do you not perceive that Thyestes must have had a 
share of reason proportionable to the greatness of his 
crimes ; such crimes as are not only represented to us 
on the stage, but such as we see committed, nay often 
exceeded, in the common course of life ? Private houses, 
public courts , the senate, the camp, allies, provinces, 
all agree that reason is the author of all the ill as well 
as all the good we do ; that it makes few act well, but 
many ill ; and that, in short, the gods had shown 
greater benevolence in denying us any reason at all 
than in sending us that which is so pernicious ; for as 
wine is seldom wholesome, but often hurtful in diseases, 
we think it more prudent to deny it the patient, than 
to run the risk of so uncertain a remedy, so I do not 
know whether it would not be better for mankind to 
be deprived of wit, thought, and penetration, or what 
we call reason, a thing fatal to many and useful to few, 
than to have it bestowed upon them with so much 
liberality. 

But if the divine will has really consulted the good 

b This lamb is supposed to have been as the Palladium was to Troy, 
whoever, it was said, possessed it, should have the kingdom. 

c The word forum was used both for the market-place, and for the place 
where courts were held for pleadings relating to the properties of men. It 
is most likely used in the last sense here. 



m OF THE NATURE book hi. 

of man in this gift of reason, the good of those men 
only was consulted, on whom a well-regulated one is 
bestowed; how few those are, if any, is very apparent. 
It is wrong to say that the gods consulted the good of 
a few only; it is better to think that they consulted the 
good of none. 

You answer, that the ill use which a great part of 
mankind make of reason, no more takes away the good- 
ness of the gods, w r ho bestow it as a present of the 
greatest benefit to them, than the ill use which chil- 
dren make of their patrimony diminishes the obligation 
which they have to their parents for it. 

We grant you this ; but where is the similitude ? It 
was far from Deianira's design to injure Hercules d , 
when she made him a present of the shirt dipped in 
the blood of the centaurs. Nor was it a regard to the 
welfare of Jason of Pheras, that induced the man who 
with his sword opened his imposthume, which the phy- 
sicians had in vain attempted to cure 6 . 

Thus it often happens that an intended evil has 
turned to advantage, and a designed good to disadvan- . 
tage. So that the quality of the gift is by no means 
a mark of the intention of the giver; neither does the 
benefit which may accrue from it, prove that it came 

d Though Hercules burnt himself, as it is sakl, to avoid the torment 
which that shirt gave him, yet Deianira's good intentions were not defeated 
by any imprudence or ill conduct of Hercules. Therefore there is no simi- 
litude between this case and the gods giviDg reason to men. The case of 
Jason, which follows, is as little to the purpose. 

c The story of Jason of Pherae, a town in Thessaly, is this : he had an 
imposthume, for which he could get no cure ; and the anguish of it was so 
great that he threw himself into the heat of battle, with the hopes of being 
slain, to be rid of his pain ; but he received, from the sword of one of the 
enemy a stroke on the imposthume, which opened it, and the noxious 
humour discharging itself, he perfectly recovered. 



book in. OF THE GODS. 203 

from the hands of a benefactor. For, in short, what 
debauchery, what avarice, what crimes, amongst men 
do not owe their birth to thought and reflection, that 
is, to reason ? To right reason, if their thoughts are 
conformable to truth ; to bad reason, if they are not f . 
The gods only give us the mere faculty of reason, if we 
have any ; the use or abuse of it depends entirely upon 
ourselves 8 ; so that the comparison is not just between 
the present of reason given us by the gods, and a 
patrimony left to a son by his father ; for after all, if 
the punishment of mankind had been the end proposed 
by the gods, what could they have given them more 
pernicious than this seed of all evil, reason ; this slave 
of fear, injustice, and intemperance? 

I mentioned just now Medea and Atreus, persons of 
high rank, who had used this reason only in the study 
of the most flagitious crimes ; but even the trifling cha- 
racters which appear in comedies supply us with the 
like instances of this reasoning faculty ; for example, 
does not he, in the Eunuch, reason with some subtlety, 

What then must I resolve upon h ? 



She turn'd me out of doors ; she sends for me back again ; 
Shall I go ; no, not if she were to beg it of me. 

Another, in the Twins 1 , making no scruple of opposing 
a received maxim, after the manner of the Academics, 

f The meaning of this profound sentence is this ; if a man thinks right^ 
he is right; if wrong, he is wrong. The Academic does not talk as if he 
conceived rightly of reason, which is that power of the mind by which we 
are able to range and compare ideas, and to separate right from wrong. 

s This sentiment of the Academic borders on the doctrine of freedom of 
will. 

b These lines are in the first speech of the Eunuch of Terence. 

» Synepheli, the Twins ; a comedy of Cyecilius. 



204 OF THE NATURE book hi. 

asserts, that when a man is in love and in want, it is 
pleasant 

To have a father, covetous, crabbed, and passionate, 
Who has no love or affection for his children. 

This unaccountable opinion he strengthens thus: 

You may defraud him of his profits, or forge letters in his name, 
Or fright him by your servant into compliance ; 
And what you take from such an old huncks, 
How much more pleasantly do you spend it ? 

On the contrary, he says that an easy, generous 
father, is an inconvenience to a son in love ; for, 
says he, 

I cannot tell how to abuse so good, so prudent a parent, 
Who always foreruns my desires, and meets me purse in hand 
To support me in my pleasures : this easy goodness and generosity 
Quite defeat all my frauds, tricks, and stratagems k . 



k Here is one expression in the quotation from Caecilius, that is not com- 
mon to be met with; which is prcestigias prcestrinxit ; the learned Lam- 
binus gives prastinxit , for the sake, I suppose, of playing on words ; 
because it might then be translated " he has deluded my delusions, or 
stratagems;" but prastrinxit is certainly the right reading. Prcestigice are 
things which seem to be what they are not ; preestringere is to confound 
and to dazzle ; prastigias prcestrinxit is therefore elegant, " he has confounded 
or defeated all my delusions, or stratagems," not deluded them, because the 
father used no delusions, but showed an open generosity. Plautus, in the 
first speech of his Miles Gloriosus, has this expression : 



contra conserta manu 



Oculorum. prcestringut aciem in acie hostibus. 

Pyrgopolynices, the bragging soldier, orders Artotrogus, his parasite, to get 
his shield ready and to make it bright, that it may dazzle the eyes of the 
enemy and confound them in the midst of battle. Plautus here plays 
with words, the one acies meaning the sharpness of sight, the other the 
front of battle, or battle in array. 



book in. OF THE GODS. 205 

What are these frauds, tricks, and stratagems, but 
the effect of reason ? O excellent gift of the gods ! 
Without this Phormio l could not have said : 

Find me out the old man; I have got something hatching for him 
in my head. 

But let us pass from the stage to the bar. The 
pretor m takes his seat. To judge whom? The man 
who set fire to our archives. How secretly was that 
villany conducted ! Q. Sosius, an illustrious Roman 
knight of the Picene n field, confessed the fact. Who 
else is to be tried ? He who forged the public regis- 
ters ; Alenus, an artful fellow, who counterfeited the 
handwriting of the six officers °. Let us call to mind 
other processes; that of the gold of Tolosa p , the con- 
spiracy of Jugurtha q . Let us trace back the informa- 
tions laid against Tubulus 1 for bribery in his judicial 
office ; and, since that, the proceedings of the tribune 
Peduceus concerning the incest of the vestals. Let us 
reflect upon the trials which daily happen for assas- 



I In the first scene of the second act of the Phormio of Terence. 

m The ancient Romans had a judicial as well as a military pretor, and 
he sat, with inferior judges attending him, like one of our chief justices. 
Sessum it pretor, which I douht not is the right reading, Lambinus restored 
from an old copy. The common reading was sessum iteprecor. 

II Picenum was a region of Italy. 

The sexprimi were general receivers of all taxes and tributes ; and they 
were obliged to make good, out of their own fortunes, whatever deficiencies 
were in the public treasury. 

p Which Q. Cffipio, when consul, seized at Tolosa, in France. 

<i Conjuratio Jugurthina here means, as Dr. Davis observes, the methods 
which that prince took to draw some of the Romans over to his party by 
bribes. 

r Tubulus was pretor, and is said to have fled his country, at the ex- 
piration of the time of his pretorship, on account of the bribes which he 
openly received in his office. 



206 OF THE NATURE book hi. 

sinations, poisonings, embezzlement of public money, 
frauds in wills, against which we have a new law ; then 
that action against the advisers or assisters of any 
theft; the many laws concerning frauds in guardian- 
ship, breaches of trust in partnerships, and commis- 
sions in trade, and other violations of faith in buying, 
selling, borrowing, or lending ; the public decree on a 
private affair by the Laetorian law s ; and lastly, that 
scourge of all dishonesty, the law against fraud, pro- 
posed by our friend Aquillius ; that sort of fraud, he 
says, by which one thing is pretended and another 
done. 

Can we then think that this plentiful fountain of 
evil sprung from the immortal gods? If they have 
given reason to man they have likewise given him 
subtlety, for subtlety is only a deceitful manner of 
applying reason to do mischief. To them likewise we 
must owe deceit, and every other crime, which, with- 
out the help of reason, would neither have been 
thought of nor committed. As the old woman wished * 

That to the fir, which on mount Pelion grew, 
The axe had ne'er been laid, 

so we should wish the gods had never bestowed this 

5 The Laetorian law was a security for those under age, against extor- 
tioners, etc. By this law, all debts contracted under twenty-five years of 
age were void. 

1 This is a quotation from a tragedy of Ennius called Medea; in which 
the old woman (Medea's nurse) imputes all the evils which happened to 
Medea and her family, to the ship in which the Argonauts sailed ; she 
therefore wishes that the wood of which it was built had never been felled ; 
so the Academic imputes all human ills to reason, and therefore wishes 
there was no such thing. Nothing is more evident than that most human 
ills arise from a want of obedience to the rule of right, which is the result 
of reason. 



book in. OF THE GODS. 207 

ability on man; the abuse of which is so general, that 
the small number of those who make a good use of it, 
are often oppressed by those who make a bad use of 
it ; so that it seems to be given rather to help vice 
than to promote virtue amongst us. 

This, you insist on, is the fault of man, and not of 
the gods. But should we not laugh at a physician or 
pilot, though they are weak mortals, if they were to lay 
the blame of their ill success on the violence of the 
disease or the fury of the tempest? Had there not 
been danger, we should say, who would have applied 
to you ? This reasoning has still greater force against 
the deity. The fault, you say, is in man, if he commits 
crimes. But why was not man endued with a reason 
incapable of producing any crimes ? How could the 
gods err ? When we leave our effects to our children, 
it is in hopes they are well bestowed, in which we may 
be deceived; but how can the deity be deceived? As 
Phoebus, when he trusted his chariot to his son Phae- 
ton, or as Neptune, when he indulged his son Theseus 
in granting him three wishes, the consequence of 
which was the destruction of Hippolytus u ? These are 
poetical fictions. Truth should proceed from philoso- 
phers. Yet, if those poetical deities had foreseen 
that their indulgence would have proved fatal to their 
sons, they must have been thought blamable for it. 



u The three wishes of Theseus were, that he might be able to return 
from hell, to find his way out of the famous labyrinth, and that Neptune 
would forward the death of his son Hippolytus. Theseus's anger to his son 
arose from a false accusation of his attempting the virtue of his mother-in- 
law Phaedra. Hippolytus is said to have been thrown out of his chariot, 
and killed, as he was flying from Theseus his father. Theseus was the 
son of iEgeus, and is here called the son, of Neptune, because of his 
ferocity. 



208 OF THE NATURE book hi. 

Aristo x of Chios used often to say, that the philo- 
sophers do hurt to such of their disciples as take their 
good doctrine in a wrong sense ; thus the lectures of 
Aristippus y might produce debauchees, and those of 
Zeno pedants. If this be true, it were better that 
philosophers should be silent, than that their disciples 
should be corrupted by a misapprehension of their 
masters' meaning ; so if reason, which was bestowed on 
mankind by the gods with a good design, tends only to 
make men more subtle and fraudulent, it had been 
better for them never to have received it. There 
could be no excuse for a physician who prescribes 
wine to a patient, knowing he would drink it and im- 
mediately expire. Your providence is no less blam- 
able in giving reason to man, who, she foresaw, would 
make a bad use of it. Will you say she did not foresee 
it? I should be greatly pleased with that. But you 
dare not. I know what a sublime idea you entertain 
of her. 

But to conclude. If folly, by the unanimous consent 
of philosophers, is allowed to be the greatest of all 
evils, and if no one ever attained to true wisdom, we, 
whom you say the immortal gods take care of, are con- 
sequently in a state of the utmost misery. For that 
nobody is well, or that nobody can be well, is in effect 
the same thing; and, in my opinion, that no man is 
truly wise, or that no man can be truly wise, is likewise 
the same thing. But I will insist no farther on so self- 
evident a point. Telamon, in one verse, decides the 
question. If, says he, there is a divine providence, 
Good men would be happy, bad men miserable. 

x Aristo was a Stoic, and a disciple of Zeno. 
y He was scholar to Socrates. 



book in. OF THE GODS. 209 

But it is not so. If the gods had regarded mankind, 
they should have made them all virtuous, or at least 
those who were virtuous happy. Why therefore was 
the Carthaginian 2 in Spain suffered to destroy those 
best and bravest men, the two Scipios? Why did 
Maximus 3 lose his son, the consul? Why did Han- 
nibal kill Marcellus ? Why did Cannae b deprive us of 
Paulus? Why was the body of Regulus c delivered 
up to the cruelty of the Carthaginians ? Why was not 
Africanus d protected from violence in his own house? 

To these, and many more ancient instances, let us 
add some of later date. Why is Rutilius e , my uncle, 
a man of the greatest virtue and learning, now in 
banishment? Why was my friend Drusus assassinated 
in his own house ? Why was Scaevola, the high priest, 
that pattern of moderation and prudence, massacred 



z This Carthaginian was Hasdrubal, brother to Hannibal. The two 
Scipios whom he killed were Cneius and Publius. They took great part 
of Spain from the Carthaginians, and lost it again. 

a Q. Fabius Maximus, surnamed Cunctator, from cunctando, delaying, of 
whom Ennius says : 

cunctando restituit rem,, 



he restored affairs by delay. 

b A village in Apulia, famous for Hannibal's great slaughter of the 
Romans: it is said he slew forty thousand, among whom was Paulus /Emi- 
lius, the consul. 

c Marcus Attilius Kegulus, a Roman consul, was taken prisoner by the 
Carthaginians in the first Punic war. He was sent back to Rome, in order 
to be exchanged for a number of Carthaginians, then prisoners, but made 
use only of this opportunity to persuade the Romans to make no exchange ; 
and, having settled his affairs, chose rather to return to Caithage, where he 
was put to a cruel death. 

d Scipio Africanus was suspected to have been murdered by his wife at 
his country-house. 

e P. Rutilius was sentenced to banishment, on a false accusation of 
bribery, by a combination of the publicans, over whom he kept a strict 
hand in Asia. 



210 OF THE NATURE book hi. 

before the statue of Vesta ? Why, before that, were 
so many illustrious citizens put to death by Cinna? 
Why had Marius, the most perfidious of men, the 
power to cause the death of Catullus f , a man of the 
greatest dignity ? But there would be no end of enu- 
merating examples of good men made miserable, and 
wicked men prosperous. Why did that Marius live 
to an old age, and die so happily at his own house, in 
his seventh consulship ? Why was that inhuman 
wretch Cinna permitted to enjoy so long a reign? He, 
indeed, met with deserved punishment at last. But 
'had it not been better that these inhumanities had 
been prevented, than that the author of them should 
be punished afterwards? 

Varius, a most impious wretch, was given up to 
justice. If this was his punishment for the murdering 
Drusus by the sword, and Metellus by poison, had it 
not been better to have preserved their lives, than to 
have their deaths avenged on Varius? 

Dionysius was thirty-eight years a tyrant over the 
most opulent and flourishing city g ; and, before him, 
how many years did Pisistratus h tyrannize in the very 
flower of Greece ? 

Phalaris'and Apollodorus k met with the fate they 
deserved. But not till after they had tortured and put 
to death multitudes. Many robbers have been exe- 



f He was an orator, and consul with Marius, who aiming at his life, 
Catullus shut himself in a close room, with a fire, and choked himself, to 
prevent the design of his enemy. 

s Syracuse in Sicily. 

h Pisistratus was thirty-three years tyrant over the Athenians. Davis. 
Cicero here rhetorically calls Athens the flower of Greece. 

' Tyrant of Agrigentum in Sicily. 

k Tyrant of Cassandrea, a city in Macedonia. 



BOOK III. 



OF THE GODS. 



211 



cuted ; but the number of those who have suffered for 
their crimes, is short of those whom they have robbed 
and murdered. 

Anaxarchus 1 , a scholar of Democritus, was cut to 
pieces by command of the tyrant of Cyprus ; and Zeno 
of Elea m ended his life in tortures. What shall I say 
of Socrates", whose death, as often as I read of it in 
Plato, draws fresh tears from my eyes ? 

If therefore the gods really see everything that hap- 
pens to men, you must acknowledge they make no dis- 
tinction between the good and the bad. Diogenes 
the Cynic used to say of Harpalus, one of the most 
fortunate villains of his time, that the constant pros- 
perity of such a man was a kind of witness against the 
gods. 

Dionysius, of whom we have before spoken, after he 
had pillaged the temple of Proserpine at Locris, set 
sail for Syracuse, and, having a fair wind during his 
voyage, said, with a smile, " see, my friends, what fa- 
vourable winds the immortal gods bestow upon church 
robbers." Encouraged by this prosperous event, he 



] Diogenes Laertius, says he was pounded to death in a stone mortar, by 
command of Nicocreon, tyrant of Cyprus. Nicocreon had some reason for 
his resentment, according to Laertius, who tells us that Anaxarchus, at a 
feast of Alexander's, said that everything was magnificent, and (hat there 
wanted nothing but the head of a certain noble person, looking steadfastly 
at Nicocreon. After the death of Alexander, Nicocreon revenged himself 
as related. The same biographer tells us, that Anaxarchus, as they were 
pounding him, cried out, " Grind, grind 4he vessel (meaning his body) of 
Anaxarchus, for you cannot hurt Anaxarchus." 

m Elea, a city of Lucania in Italy. The manner in which Zeno was put 
to death, is, according to Diogenes Laertius, uncertain. 

B That great and good man was accused of destroying the divinity of the 
gods of his country ; he was condemned, and died by drinking a glass of 
poison. 

p2 



212 OF THE NATURE book hi. 

proceeded in his impiety. When he landed at Pelo- 
ponnesus, he went into the temple of Jupiter Olympius, 
and disrobed his statue of a golden mantle of great 
weight, an ornament which the tyrant Gelo° had given 
out of the spoils of the Carthaginians, and at the same 
time, in a jesting manner, said, that " a golden mantle 
was too heavy in summer, and too cold in winter;" then, 
throwing a woollen cloak over the statue, said, "this will 
serve for all seasons." At another time he ordered the 
golden beard of iEsculapius of Epidaurus p to be taken 
away, saying, that " it was absurd for the son to have a 
beard, when his father had none q ." He likewise robbed 
the temples of the silver tables, which, according to the 
ancient custom of Greece, bore this inscription: to the 
good gods; saying, " he was willing to make use of their 
goodness ;" and, without the least scruple, took away 
the little golden emblems of victory, the cups and 
coronets, which were in the hands of the statues, 
saying, " he did not take but receive them ; for it would 
be folly not to accept good things from the gods, to 
whom we are constantly praying for favours, when they 
stretch out their hands towards us." In short, what he 
thus pillaged from the temples, were by his order 
brought to the market-place, and sold by the common 
crier ; and after he had received the money for thenr, 
he commanded every purchaser to restore what he had 
bought, within a limited time, to the temples from 
whence they came. Thus to his impiety towards the 



Tyrant of Sicily. 

p A city of Peloponnesus, where ^Esculapius was worshipped. 

1 iEsculapius was usually represented with a beard, as an emblem of 
sagacity, proper for the god of physic ; and his father Apollo without any, 
as an indication of perpetual youth. 



book in. OF THE GODS. 21 



Q 



gods, he added injustice to man. Yet neither did 
Olympian Jove strike him with his thunder, nor did 
^Esculapius cause him to die by tedious diseases, and 
a lingering death. He died in his bed, had funeral 
honours r done him, and left his power, which he had 
wickedly obtained, as a just and lawful inheritance to 
his son. 

It is not without concern that I maintain a doctrine 
which seems to authorise evil, and which might pro- 
bably give a sanction to it, if conscience, without any 
divine assistance, did not point out, in the clearest 
manner, the difference between virtue and vice. With- 
out conscience man is contemptible. For as no family 
or. state can be supposed to be formed with any reason 
or discipline, if there are no rewards for good actions, 
nor punishments for bad ; so we cannot believe that a 

r The common reading is in tympanidis rogum inlatus est. This passage 
has been the occasion of as many different opinions concerning both the 
reading and the sense, as any passage in the whole treatise. Tympanum 
is used for a timbrel or drum, tympanidia a diminutive of it. Lambinus 
says, tympana were sticks, with which the tyrant used to beat the con- 
demned. P. Victorius substitutes tyrannidis for tympanidis. Athenaeus 
says, that Timaeus erected the funeral pile of Dionysius the tyrant, from which 
Dr. Davis starts this emendation, in Timcei rogum; that is, says he, the pile 
which Timaeus raised. Tympanis is one of the various readings. Bouhier, 
amongst his readings, proposes in pentapylis rogo Hiatus est, but that is too 
arbitrary ; and Markland has this conjecture, triumphantis in modum in 
rogum Hiatus est, which is a better sense, though not of authority, than any 
yet mentioned; he was carried to his pile in a triumphant manner. These 
are the most considerable of the various readings of this passage ; which are 
of little importance to a translation, and of no great advantage in the ori- 
ginal. Ancient authors differ as much about the death of this Dionysius, 
as the critics do about the reading of this passage. Justin says that he was 
killed by his own domestics. But Pliny, in his Natural History, says that 
he died with joy on the reception of the news of a victory, which is not 
different from what Diodorus Siculus says. Other authors give other ac- 
counts. See Cornelius Nepos in his Life of Dion, and Plutarch, who sa)s 
he was poisoned by a sleepy potion, at the instigation of his son. 



214 OF THE NATURE book hi. 

divine providence regulates the world, if there is no 
distinction between the honest and the wicked. 

But the gods, you say, neglect trifling things ; the 
little fields or vineyards of particular men are not 
worthy their attention ; and if blasts or hail destroy 
their product, Jupiter does not regard it ; nor do kings 
extend their care to the lower offices of government. 

This argument might have some weight, if, in bring- 
ing Rutilius as an instance, I had only complained of 
the loss of his farm at Formiae s , but I spoke of a per- 
sonal misfortune *, his banishment. 

All men agree that external benefits, as vineyards, 
corn, olives, plenty of fruit and grain, and in short 
every conveniency and property of life, are derived 
from the gods ; and indeed with right reason ; since 
by our virtue we claim applause, and in virtue justly 
glory, which we could have no right to do if it were 
the gift of the gods, and not a personal merit. 

When we are honoured with new dignities, or blessed 
with increase of riches ; when we are favoured by for- 
tune beyond our expectation, or luckily delivered from 
any approaching evil, we return thanks for it to the 
gods, and assume no praise to ourselves. But who 
ever thanked the gods that he was a good man? We 
thank them indeed for riches, health, and honour. 
For those we invoke the best and greatest Jupiter; 
but not for wisdom, temperance, and justice. No one 
ever offered a tenth of his estate to Hercules to be made 



8 A city in Campania in Italy. 

1 The original is de amissa salute, which means the sentence of banish- 
ment amongst the Romans, in which was contained the loss of goods and 
estate, and the privileges of a Roman ; and in this sense l'abbe d'Olivet 
translates it. 



book in. OF THE GODS. 215 

wise u . It is reported, indeed, of Pythagoras, that he 
sacrificed an ox to the muses, upon having made some 
new discovery in geometry x ; but for my part I cannot 
believe it, because he refused to sacrifice even to 
Apollo at Delos, lest he should defile the altar with 
blood. 

But to return. It is universally agreed that good 
fortune we must ask of the gods, but wisdom must arise 
from ourselves ; and though temples have been conse- 
crated to the mind, to virtue, and to faith, yet that 
does not contradict their being inherent in us. In 
regard to hope, safety, assistance, and victory, we must 
rely upon the gods for them ; from whence it follows, 
as Diogenes said, that the prosperity of the wicked 
destroys the idea of a divine providence. 

But good men have sometimes success. They have 
so ; but we cannot with any show of reason attribute 
that success to the gods. Diagoras, who is called the 
atheist, being at Samothrace y , one of his friends 
showed him several pictures 2 of people who had 
endured very dangerous storms; " See," says he, " you 
who deny a providence, how many have been saved by 
their prayers to the gods." " Aye," says Diagoras, " I 
see those who were saved, but where are those painted 
who were shipwrecked ?" At another time he himself 



u We may as reasonably thank the deity for wisdom as for wealth or 
honour, for they are equally the effects of natural causes. 

• x The forty-ninth proposition of the first book of Euclid is unanimously 
ascribed to him by the ancients. Dr. Wotton, in his Reflections upon 
Ancient and Modern Learning, says, " it is indeed a very noble proposition, 
the foundation of trigonometry, of universal and various use in those curious 
speculations about incommensurable numbers." 

y An isle in the ^-Egean sea, not far from Thrace. 

7 These votive tables or pictures were hung up in the temples. 



216 OF THE NATURE - book hi. 

was in a storm, when the sailors, being greatly alarmed, 
told him they justly deserved that misfortune for 
admitting him into their ship ; when he, pointing to 
others under the like distress, asked them if they 
believed Diagoras was also aboard those ships? In 
short, with regard to good or bad fortune, it matters 
not what you are, or how you have lived. 

The gods, like kings, regard not everything. What 
similitude is there between them ? If kings neglect 
anything, want of knowledge may be pleaded in their 
defence ; but ignorance cannot be brought as an ex- 
cuse for the gods. Your manner of justifying them is 
somewhat extraordinary, when you say, that if a wicked 
man dies without suffering for his crimes, the gods 
inflict a punishment on his children, his children's 
children, and all his posterity. O wonderful equity 
of the gods! What city would endure the maker of a 
law, which should condemn a son or a grandson for 
a crime committed by the father or the grandfather 3 ? 

Shall Tantalus' unhappy offspring know 
No end, no close, of this long scene of woe? 
When will the dire reward of guilt be o'er, 
And Myrtilus demand revenge no more b ? 



a Plutarch relates in one of his treatises, that Bion says, " that if the gods 
punished the children of the wicked, it would be as ridiculous as the physi- 
cian, who should apply a medicine to a son or grandson for the disease of 
the father or grandfather." D'Amyot. 

b This passage is a fragment from a tragedy of Attius. Myrtilus was 
the son of Mercury, whom Pelops the son of Tantalus threw into the sea; 
and Tantalus is said to have served up his son Pelops at an entertainment, 
which he made for some of the gods, to see if their godships could discover 
the imposition; for which the poets and mythologists condemned him to 
hell, there to stand up to his chin in water, with delightful apples bobbino- 
at his mouth, and unable either to catch the apples or to taste the water. 
Thyestes, /Egistus, Agamemnon, and 0;estes, who were descendants of 



book in. OF THE GODS. 217 

Whether the poets have corrupted the Stoics, or 
the Stoics given authority to the poets, I cannot easily 
determine. Both alike are to be condemned. If those 
persons, whose names have been branded in the satires 
of Hipponax c or Archilochus d , were driven to despair, 
it did not proceed from the gods, but had its birth in 
their own minds. When we see iEgistus and Paris 
lost in the heat of an impure passion, why are we to 
attribute it to a deity, when the crime, as it were, 
speaks itself? I believe that those who recover from 
illness are more indebted to the care of Hippocrates 
than to the power of ^sculapius; that Sparta received 
her laws from Lycurgus 6 rather than from Apollo; 
that those eyes of the maritime coast, Corinth and 



Pelops, are all said to have died violent deaths; which were attributed to 
them by the poets, as visitations of the gods upon them for the sins of their 
forefathers. These tales may serve a poetical turn; but when such a doc- 
trine as the innocent suffering for the guilty becomes a point of religion, it 
is a certain indication that the broacher or propagator of it is entirely igno- 
rant of the nature of the deity. God may, as archbishop Tillotson has 
somewhere observed, in the following sense be said to visit the sins of the 
father upon the third and fourth generation; a parent may by his irregulari- 
ties contract a disease, which shall descend to his posterity, and be the 
occasion of his children's coming into the world with an imperfect stamen 
of life. These are the inevitable effects of natural causes ; but that God 
should afflict the innocent for the guilty is a doctrine as wicked as it is 
weak. 

c Hipponax was a poet at Ephesus, who was so deformed that Bupalus 
drew a picture of him to provoke laughter; for which Hipponax is said to 
have written such keen iambics on the painter that he hanged himself. 

d Lycambes had promised Archilochus the poet to marry his daughter 
to him, but afterwards retracted his promise, and refused her ; upon which 
Archilochus is said to have published a satire in iambic verse, that provoked 
him to hang himself. 

e When Lycurgus king of Sparta published his laws, he told the people 
that he was inspired by Apollo. This is an artifice which has been often 
practised; and indeed such a pretence may induce the people the more 
readily to receive the laws. 



218 OF THE NATURE book hi. 

Carthage, were plucked out, the one by Critolaus f , the 
other by Hasdrubal g , without the assistance of any 
divine anger, since you yourselves confess, that a deity 
cannot possibly be angry on any provocation. 

But could not the deity have assisted and preserved 
those eminent cities ? Undoubtedly he could ; for, ac- 
cording to your doctrine, his power is infinite and with- 
out the least labour; and as nothing but the will is 
necessary to the motion of our bodies, so the divine 
will of the gods, with the like ease, can create, move, 
and change all things. This you hold, not from a 
mere phantom of superstition, but on physical and 
settled principles of reason ; for matter, you say, of 
which all things are composed and consist, is sus- 
ceptible of all forms and changes, and there is nothing 
which cannot be, or cease to be, in an instant, and that 
divine providence has the command and disposure of 
this universal matter, and consequently can, in any part 
of the universe, do whatever she pleases. From whence 
I conclude that this providence h either knows not the 
extent of her power, or neglects human affairs, or can- 
not judge what is best for us. 

Providence, you say, does not extend her care to 
particular men. There is no wonder, since she does 

f Critolaus was general of the Achaians, who, by his committing violence 
on the Roman ambassador, occasioned a war, which ended in the destruc- 
tion of Corinth. 

s Hasdrubal's cruelty to the Roman soldiers, under the Scipios in Spain, 
provoked Publius Cornelius Scipio to burn and utterly destroy Carthage. 

h The Academic makes this inference from the stoical doctrine of pro- 
vidence ; nor is it an unjust inference. The doctrine of a deity is not to be 
defended without making all his actions necessary; that is, all his designs 
the necessary result of infinite wisdom; and all his actions the necessary 
result of infinite power. There can therefore be no favour or affection in the 
deity towards particulars. 



book in. OF THE GODS. 219 

not to cities, or even to countries or people. If there- 
fore she neglects whole nations, is it not very probable 
that she neglects all mankind ? 

But how can you assert that the gods do not enter 
into all the little circumstances of life, and yet hold 
that they distribute dreams among men? Since you 
believe in dreams, it is your part to solve this difficulty. 

Besides, you say we ought to call upon the gods. 
Those who call upon the gods are particulars. Divine 
providence therefore regards particulars ; which con- 
sequently proves they are more at leisure than you 
imagine. 

Let us suppose the divine providence to be greatly 
busied ; that she turns about the heavens, supports 
the earth, and rules the seas ; why does she suffer so 
many gods to be unemployed ? Why is not the super- 
intendence of human affairs given to some of those idle 
deities, which you say are innumerable ? 

This is the purport of what I had to say concerning 
the nature of the gods ; not with a design to destroy 
their existence, but merely to show what an obscure 
point it is, and with what difficulties an explanation of 
it is attended. 

Balbus, observing that Cotta had finished his dis- 
course, you have been very severe, says he, against the 
being of a divine providence ; a doctrine established 
by the Stoics with piety and wisdom ; but as it grows 
too late I shall defer my answer to another day. Our 
argument is of the greatest importance ; it concerns 
our altars 1 , our hearths, our temples, nay, even the 



' Pro aris etfocis is a proverbial expression. The Romans, when they 
would say their all was at stake, could not express it stronger than by 



220 OF THE NATURE, ETC. book hi. 

walls of our city, which you priests hold sacred ; you, 
who by religion defend Rome better than she is de- 
fended by her ramparts. This is a cause which, whilst 
I have life, I think I cannot abandon without impiety. 

There is nothing, replied Cotta, I desire more than 
to be confuted. I have not pretended to decide this 
point, but to give you my private sentiments upon it ; 
and am very sensible of your great superiority in 
argument. 

No doubt of it, says Velleius ; we have much to fear 
from one who believes our dreams are sent from Jupi- 
ter, which, though they are of little weight, are yet of 
more importance than the discourse of the Stoics con- 
cerning the nature of the gods. 

The conversation ended here and we parted. Vel- 
leius judged that the arguments of Cotta were truest ; 
but those of Balbus seemed to me to have the greater 
probability k . 

saying they contended pro aris etfocis, for religion and their firesides, or, as 
we express it, for religion and property. 

k Cicero, who was an Academic, gives his opinion according to the man- 
ner of the Academics ; who looked upon probability, and a resemblance of 
truth, as the utmost they could arrive at. 



AN INQUIRY 



INTO THE 



ASTRONOMY AND ANATOMY 



OF 



THE ANCIENTS. 



AN INQUIRY INTO THE 

ASTRONOMY AND ANATOMY 

OF 

THE ANCIENTS. 

IN the following inquiry I am no more zealous for the 
honour of the ancients, than for that of the moderns ; 
but my intent is to pursue my inquiry into the astro- 
nomy of the ancients farther than I have yet seen it 
carried ; and I cannot avoid saying, that I am afraid 
that several worthy and able writers have been ob- 
structed in their examinations into this and some other 
subjects, by their attachment to particular systems of 
religion; which seems to have been the case of the 
author of one of the most entertaining books that has 
been written on the same subject : I mean Mr. Baker's 
Reflections upon Learning; in which, with great know- 
ledge and genius, he endeavours to show the insuf- 
ficiency of human reason ; but I fear whenever we for- 
sake that to follow any other guide, it is like the blind 
leading the blind. 

Dr. Halley says a that Thales was the first who could 
predict an eclipse in Greece, about six hundred years 
before Christ ; but from the seven eclipses which he 
mentions, preserved in Ptolemey's Syntaxis, the oldest 



a In his Discourse on Ancient and Modern Astronomy, printed in the 24th 
chapter of Dr. Wotton's Reflections upon Ancient and Modern Learning. 



224 , AN INQUIRY, ETC. 

above seven hundred years before Christ, we may 
naturally conclude that those observations were not in 
the infancy of knowledge amongst the Chaldseans. 

Hipparchus, says our learned astronomer, made the 
first catalogue of the fixed stars not above a hundred 
and fifty years before Christ ; without which catalogue 
there could be scarce such a science as astronomv. 
With submission to his superior judgment in this noble 
science, I shall prove that a catalogue of the fixed stars 
was made long before Hipparchus. Aratus, who lived 
near, if not full, three hundred years before Christ, 
gave an exact catalogue of the fixed stars in his Phce- 
nomena ; which poem, written in Greek by Aratus, is 
partly translated into Latin by Cicero, in the second 
book of the Nature of the Gods ; and what we have 
of Hipparchus is a comment on the Phcenomena of 
Aratus ; and he there accuses Aratus of being a 
plagiary from the writings of Eudoxus. 

I doubt not but Dr. Halley is right in preferring 
Tycho Brahe or Hevelius to Hipparchus, and Kep- 
ler to Ptolemey, for being nearer in their calculations 
than the other. However, the same great master of 
astronomy assured me, when I consulted him on the 
subject, that the description of the courses of the five 
planets in Tully's second book of the Nature of the 
Gods, there called the five wandering stars, is agree- 
able to the latest astronomical observations, excepting 
in one particular, that is, Hesperus (Stella Veneris), 
which is there said never to go more than two signs 
from the sun ; but Dr. Halley, on whose judgment I 
much depend, told me it never goes but one and a 
half. 

That the ancients had divided the heavens by the 






AN INQUIRY, ETC, 225 

zodiac, and the zodiac into its dodecatemories, or 
twelve signs, and that they had given the fixed stars 
their places in their different hemispheres, separated by 
the zodiac, is evident from the Phcenomena of Aratus, 
who, as I observed before, flourished near one hundred 
and fifty years before Hipparchus ; from which time 
we will proceed higher, to Eudoxus, and from him to 
Hesiod and Homer, who were near a thousand years 
before Christ ; from several passages in both which 
poets, it is certain that many of the fixed stars had then 
the places and figures in the heavens which they now 
have. Hesiod begins the second book of his Works 
and Days (*Epya kou 'Hpepai) with the rising and setting 
of the Pleiades. His first precept there, is to reap 
when the Pleiades rise, and to plough when they set. 
Immediately after which precept, there is a passage 
founded on a truly astronomical observation : speak- 
ing of the Pleiades, says he, 

There is a time when forty days they lie, 
And forty nights, conceal'd from human eye, 
But in the course of the revolving year, 
When the swain sharps the scythe, again appear. 

The time, says the scholiast Tzetzes, in which they 
lie forty days and forty nights concealed from human 
eye, is partly in April and partly in May; which, con- 
tinues he, is occasioned by the vicinity of the sun at 
that time to the Pleiades ; in April he passes through 
Aries, and in May through Taurus ; in the middle of 
which last sign the Pleiades are placed ; and they have 
the same situation in Flamsteed's Atlas Ccelestis; nor 
is this the only passage in that very ancient poet 
founded on astronomical observations. Orion and the 

Q 



226 AN INQUIRY, ETC. 

Dog are placed near each other in the same book of the 
Works and Days as we find them placed in all the 
modern celestial maps. 

To what a great height the science of astronomy 
had arose in those early ages of Greece, a thousand 
years before Christ, cannot positively be said, because 
of the books which are lost. Hesiod wrote a professed 
treatise of astronomy, scarce any remains of which are 
delivered clown to us. The title of it was 'Ao-Tpovoptu 
MeyaXy], which might have been, perhaps, the Historia 
Ccelestis of that age ; this book is quoted by Pliny, 
who says, according to Hesiod, in whose name we have 
a book of astronomy extant, "the early setting of the 
Pleiades is about the end of the autumn equinox." 

I must here observe, that in the poem called the 
Shield of Hercules, which is a very ancient piece, 
though not Hesiod's, there is a description of the con- 
stellation Perseus, whose figure answers nearly to that 
in the present maps. 

We may go still higher than the age of Hesiod. 
sir Isaac Newton, in his Chronology of Ancient King- 
doms amended, among other arguments, has one taken 
from the astronomical position of the equinoctial and 
solstitial colures at the time when Chiron observed them. 
He says the equinoctial colure then passed through the 
middle of Aries. Chiron was the tutor of Achilles, 
who was the principal hero in the Trojan war, and 
must have been many years before Hesiod and Homer. 
It is of no signification to me, in this Inquiry, whether 
sir Isaac Newton is right or wrong in the inference 
that he draws from thence, which is, that the Argo- 
nautic expedition was not above nine hundred and 
thirty-seven years before the Christian era. What I 



AN INQUIRY, ETC. 227 

mention this for here, is to show, in part, the know- 
ledge which the Greeks had of astronomy in those 
very early times. That sir Isaac Newton is wrong I 
have no doubt ; for, as Mr. Whiston has observed 5 , the 
back of Aries, which contains about ten degrees in 
length, and was not moved over by its colures in less 
than seven centuries, is certainly very different from 
the middle of Aries, which is but a single intersection, 
and the back in general determines nothing, through 
which part of the back the colure passed in the days 
of Chiron. Sir Isaac Newton's design, in his Chrono- 
logy of Ancient Kingdoms amended, was to reduce all 
chronology to scripture chronology, and thereby to 
establish, in that point, the authority of those books. 
On this weak hypothesis of his own he proceeds to 
knock down all former chronology ; and by this single 
instance of his wild inference from the colures moving 
over the back of Aries, we may see how the most con- 
siderable men in particular sciences may be blinded by 
their favour to particular systems. However, from 
hence it is plain that the heavens were read, and astro- 
nomy was improved to a science, in those ages of 
Greece so remote from us. 

I shall here give, from Dr. Gregory's Elements of 
Physical and Geometrical Astronomy, a catalogue of 
the fixed stars, as known to the ancients, and as by 
them placed in the different hemispheres, and then 
make some observations on their figures. The ancients 
have distributed the fixed stars visible in our temperate 
zone into forty-eight images, twelve of which are 
placed along the whole length of the zodiac. The 

b In his Confutation of sir Isaac Newton's Chronology. 

q2 



228 AN INQUIRY, ETC. 

northern six are Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, 
and Virgo ; the southern are Libra, Scorpio, Sagitta- 
rius, Capricornus, Aquarius, and Pisces. The other 
figures are placed in the hemispheres separated from 
one another by the zodiac, and there are twenty-one in 
the northern hemisphere, the little Bear, the greater 
Bear, Draco, Cepheus, Bootes, the northern Crown, 
Hercules, Lyra, Cygnus, Cassiopeia, Perseus, Andro- 
meda, the Triangle, Auriga, Pegasus, Equuleus, the 
Dolphin, Sagitta, Aquila, Serpentarius, and Serpens. 
To these were afterwards added the constellations of 
Antinous, and of Coma Berenices ; the first of which 
was made of the unformed stars between Capricorn 
and Sagittary, near the Eagle ; and Coma Berenices 
was made of those unformed near the Lion's tail. 
Ptolemey makes Antinous belong to the Eagle, and 
Equuleus to Pegasus. In the southern hemisphere are 
fifteen constellations known to the ancients, Cetus, 
Eridanus, Lepus, Orion, the great Dog, the little 
Dog, the ship Argo, Hydra, Crater, Corvus, the Cen- 
taur, Lupus, Ara, the southern Crown, and the 
southern Fishes. 

The Greeks, in the figures and names of the con- 
stellations, and of the planets, followed former ages in 
some, and gave names to others from a superstitious 
regard to their religion ; and the names of some of the 
constellations were originally given in respect to the 
memories of some eminent persons. That the names 
could not be given before the times of those persons, 
from whom they took the names, is certain ; but those 
are of great antiquity. Cepheus was an ^Ethiopian 
king, and is recorded to have been a great astronomer ; 
Cassiopeia was his wife, and Andromeda their daugh- 



AN INQUIRY, ETC. 229 

ter ; Perseus was the lover of Andromeda, and Pega- 
sus was his horse ; of these a fable is told ; and the 
whole family, horse and all, are placed in the heavens 
in honour to Cepheus the royal astronomer. I cannot 
conclude this head without observing, that the constel- 
lations have still the same names, figures, and places, 
with very little variation, which the ancients gave them, 
excepting those constellations lately discovered in a 
part of the world unkown to those which we call the 
ancients. 

It is certain, from the arguments which I have ad- 
vanced, that astronomy was improved by the Greeks 
to a science above a thousand years before Christ ; and 
that it had not its rise in Greece is as certain. Por- 
phyry tells us, that Callisthenes brought from Babylon 
to Greece observations made near two thousand years 
before the time of Alexander the Great ; the truth of 
which has been disputed by some, but I know not 
why, unless it is because such observations may break 
into some prevailing system of religion. 

I must not end my Inquiry into the Astronomy of 
the Ancients without taking notice of Posidonius's 
sphere, mentioned by Cicero in his second book of 
the Nature of the Gods. It is not so much spoke of 
by ancient authors as Archimedes's sphere ; but from 
what is there said of it, we have no reason to think it 
inferior to Rowley's orrery. 

I now proceed to my Inquiry into the Anatomy of 
the Ancients ; in which I shall endeavour to show that 
they were not strangers to the offices of the arteries, 
the veins, and the nerves, and the circulation of the 
blood. 

It appears from Cicero's second book of the Nature 



230 AN INQUIRY, ETC. 

of the Gods, that they had a knowledge of the circula- 
tion of the blood, the distribution of it from the heart 
through certain passages to the lungs, and its return 
from thence by other certain passages; and Hippo- 
crates often speaks of the constant motion of the blood, 
and the distribution of it through all the body. The 
passage of the chyle, in its chemical changes in the 
body and its secretion from the food, is mentioned in 
the same book of Cicero. 

Celsus tell us, that dissectors among the ancients 
made their experiments on living as well as dead 
bodies ; which custom, as much as it may savour of 
barbarity, certainly gave them a greater insight into 
the structure of the human body, than if their dissec- 
tions were confined to dead bodies. 

I doubt not but modern anatomists have given a 
more exact account of the structure of the human 
body, and of the passage of the blood through every 
part, than any that is now to be found among the re- 
mains of ancient writers on the subject. What we 
have in Cicero's second book of the Nature of the 
Gods is not to be looked upon as a system ; for the 
Stoic there cursorily runs over the offices of certain 
parts in the human frame as one proof of a divine 
being. 

I shall here give an extract of the description and 
offices of the arteries, veins, and nerves, from Dr. G. 
Douglas's translation of Winslow's Anatomical Expo- 
sition of the Structure of the Human Body : 



AN INQUIRY, ETC. 2$l 

A DESCRIPTION OF THE ARTERIES. 

1. The heart throws the blood into two great arte- 
ries; one of which is named aorta, the other arteria 
pulmonaris. 

2. The aorta distributes the blood to all the parts of 
the body, for the nourishment of the parts, and for 
the secretion of different fluids. 

3. The arteria pulmonaris carries the venal blood 
through all the capillary vessels of the lungs. 

4. Both these great or general arteries are sub- 
divided into several branches, and into a great number 
of ramifications. 

A DESCRIPTION OF THE VEINS. 

1. The blood, distributed to all parts of the body by 
two kinds of arteries, the aorta and arteria pulmonaris, 
returns by three kinds of veins, called by anatomists 
vena cava, vena portae, and vena pulmonaris. 

2. The vena cava carries back to the right auricle 
of the heart, the blood conveyed by the aorta to all 
the parts of the body, except what goes by the arteriae 
coronanias cordis ; it receives all this blood from the 
arterial ramifications in part directly, and in part 
indirectly. 

3. The vena portae receives the blood carried to the 
floating viscera of the abdomen by the arteria caeliaca, 
and the two mesenterial, and conveys it to the vena 
hepetica, and from thence to the vena cava. 

4. The vena pulmonaris conveys to the pulmonary 
sinus, or left auricle of the heart, the blood carried to 
the lungs by the arteria pulmonaris. 



AN INQUIRY, ETC. 

5. To those three veins two others might be added, 
viz. those which belong particularly to the heart and to 
its auricles, and the sinuses of the dura mater. 

The auricles may be looked upon as muscular 
trunks. 

A DESCRIPTION OF THE NERVES. 

1 . All the nerves of the human body come from the 
cerebrum or cerebellum, by means of the medulla 
oblongata, or medulla spinalis ; they go out in bundles 
regularly disposed in pairs, like so many different 
trunks, which are afterwards divided into branches, etc. 

2. The nerves of the medulla oblongata go out, for 
the most part, through the basis of the cranium, at 
holes situated according to their disposition. Those 
of the medulla spinalis pass through the lateral fora- 
mina of all the vertebrae, and through the great ante- 
rior foramina of the os sacrum. 

3. We commonly reckon ten pairs of these fasciculi 
or nervous trunks of the medulla oblongata, nine of 
which go out separately through particular holes of the 
basis cranii ; and the tenth, which arises from the ex- 
tremity of that medulla, passes through the great 
occipital foramen. 

4. The trunks from the spinal marrow are twenty- 
four pairs. 

There are many more distributions of the nerves, 
which need no more to be mentioned here than all the 
various branches and ramifications of the arteries and 
veins. 

Whatever difference there may be in the account of 
the disposition and offices of those parts as related 



AN INQUIRY, ETC. 233 

by Cicero, and those described by Winslow, we must 
not precipitately impute Tully's account to the want of 
better knowledge in the ancients ; because what is said 
on this subject in the second book of the Nature of the 
Gods, is neither the writing of a professed anatomist, 
nor is it introduced as a system of anatomy, but as an 
illustration of another subject. 

If the ancients knew the circulation of the blood, the 
question that arises is, what are the discoveries which 
are ascribed to Dr. Harvey ? Dr. Harvey, as has 
been observed by another hand d , with indefatigable 
pains traced the visible veins and arteries throughout 
the body, in their whole journey from and to the heart, 
so as to demonstrate, even to the most incredulous, not 
only that the blood circulates through the lungs and 
the heart, but the very manner how, and the time in 
which, that great work is performed. This discovery 
of Dr. Harvey's has been of great use ; but the same 
discovery may have been made in ages far remote from 
our times, may have been lost in one age and country, 
and made again in another. — However, as we cannot 
prove it, we cannot positively say it has been so. 

Amongst the ravage that has been made by time 
over the writings of the ancients, some books of ana- 
tomy have been lost; and what they contained we 
cannot tell, though Galen seems to have consulted all 
who had wrote before him, and who were extant in his 
time. 

They who would know what skill the ancients had in 
practical surgery, and in the instruments necessary for 
it, may learn, in a great measure, from what that emi- 

d In Dr. Wotton's Reflections upon Ancient and Modern Learning, 
chap. 18. 

R 



234< AN INQUIRY, ETC. 

nent and learned surgeon Mr. Charles Barnard has 
left us on that subject, printed in Dr. Wotton's Re- 
flections upon Ancient and Modern Learning. " If 
we inquire," says he, " into the improvements which 
have been made by the moderns in surgery, we shall 
be forced to confess, that we have so little reason to 
value ourselves beyond the ancients, or to be tempted 
to contemn them, as the fashion is among those who 
know little and have read nothing, that we cannot give 
stronger or more convincing proofs of our own igno- 
rance as well as our pride." 



THE END. 



INDEX. 



ABSYRTUS, brother of Medea, 

page 183 
Academics, the extent of their doubts, 
and the rule of their conduct 8, 9 
Academy, by whom founded, and 
why abandoned in Cicero's time, 8 
Acantho 187 

Acheron, a river in the infernal re- 
gions 180 
Achilles, where he is worshipped 181 
Acumina, what, 74, n. 
Adonis, husband of the fourth Venus 

190 

iEdiles, what their office 14, re. 

^Eetes, father of Medea 183 

^Egystus 217 

/Eseulapius, 101. 177. 180. 217— 

How many of that name, and from 

whom sprung 188 

Air, the god of Anaximenes, 17 — 

and of Diogenes of Apollonia 20 

Alabandus, by whom deified, 176. 

184 
Albutius, his character as a philoso- 
pher 5 1 
Alcamenes, his Vulcan 45 
Alcaeus, what seemed a beauty to 
him 43 
Alcmena, mother of the sixth Her- 
cules 179 
Alcmaeo, his theology 18 
Alco, the son of Atreus 186 
Alenus, his crime 205 
Alexander the Great, a pleasant ob- 
servation of Timseus upon the night 
of his birth 106 
Almo, a river, and a deity 185 
Amphiaraus 72. 183 
Anactes, whose sons they are, 186 — 
A general name for kings, ibid. >i. 



Anaxagoras, his theology, 18, rt, 

Anaxarchus, by whom destroyed, 

211, n. 
Anaximander, his theology 17 

Anaximenes, his theology 17 

Anteros, whose son he was 189 

Antiochus, the Academic, 6 — his 
opinion 11, 12 

Antiopa, mother of the nine Muses 

186 
Antisthenes, his theology 21 

Aoede, a muse 186 

Apes, like men 53 

Apis, an Egyptian god 45 

Apollodorus, the philosopher 51 

Apollodorus, the tyrant 210 

ApolJo, represented beardless, 45, 
212, n.— Taken for the sun, 105— 
Fought with Hercules, 178 — Fa- 
ther of Aristaeus, 181 — And of 
iEsculapius, 188 — How many 
Apollos there are, and their gene- 
alogies, ibid. 
Aquilius, Caius, what law he pro- 
posed 206 
Aratus, his Phcenomena, a Greek 
poem, part of which Tully trans- 
lated into Latin 123 
Arcesilaus reestablishes the Aca- 
demy, 8 — Degrades the senses, 38 
Arche, a muse 186 
Archilochus 59 
Archimedes, his knowledge of the 
globe 114 
Ardaea, the fields of, to whom the 
Romans used to sacrifice there 

182 

Argus, by whom killed 188 

Aristaeus, son of Apollo, what art he 

found out 181 



236 



INDEX. 



Aristippus, the dangeT of his lec- 
tures 208 

Aristo, his theology, 23 — What he 
said of Aristippus and Zeno 208 

Aristotle, his theology, 21-— Denies 
there was any such person as Or- 
pheus the poet, 59 — Cited by 
Cicero, 89, 90, 91. 113, 119. 138 

Arsinoe, mother of the third iEscula- 
pius 188 

Arsippus, father of the third 4^ scu " 
lapius - 188 

Astarte, the fourth Venus 190 

Asteria, sister of Latona, mother of 
the fourth Hercules, 179 — and of 
Hecate 181 

Astypalsea, an isle where Achilles 
was worshipped 181 

Atheists ; Diagoras, Melius, and The- 
odorus 2 

Atoms, form the world, according to 
the opinion of Epicurus, 31 — That 
doctrine disputed, 38 — From whom 
that opinion was derived, ibid. — 
Their making a world compared to 
the letters of the alphabet jumbled 
together making the Annals of En- 
nius 117, 118 

Atreus, son of Pelops 186 

Augurs, the difference between the 
functions of them and the arus- 
pices 77 

Augury, why the discipline of it is 
omitted 74 

Auspices, the consequence of disre- 
garding them to Junius, 72 — 
What they are 74, n. 

Bacchus, signifies wine, 100 — One 
the son of Semele, and another the 
son of Ceres, 101 — How many 
there were, and from whom sprung 

189 

Balbus, Lucilius, his character, 11 
— What he means by the constant 
course of the stars 96, n. 

Belus, the name of the fifth Hercules 

Cadmus, who was his daughter, 182 
Calchas, an augur 72 

Camirus, grandson of Sol 187 



Caprius, father of the third Bacchus 

189 

Carbo, his disbelief of the gods, 35, 36 

Carneades, a great adversary of the 
Stoics, 5. 155 — Confirms the Aca- 
demy, 8 — His objections against 
the gods of the Stoics 180, etc. 

Carthago, daughter of the fourth Her- 
cules 179 

Castor, his apparition, 70 — Why 
deified, 101 — Whose son he was, 
71. 186. See Tyndaridse. 

Cats, revered in Egypt 45. 56 

Catullus, his epigram upon Roscius 
the Roman actor, 44 — His death 

210, n. 

Centaurs, said to come from the 
clouds 185 

Cercops, a Pythagorean, said to have 
invented the Orphic verse 59 

Ceres, the earth meant, or an intelli- 
gence pervading it, 25. 185. 192 — 
Signifies corn, 100. 177— Mother 
of Bacchus, 101 — Allegory of the 
fable of Ceres 104 

Chrysippus, his theology, 24 — Zeno's 
buffoonery upon his name, 52 — A 
remark upon it, ibid. n. — Quoted, 
78. 87, 88— What he says of the 
swine, 154 — His opinions refuted 

167. 169 

Cicero, what he says of piety, 4 — 
Always studied philosophy, 6 — 
His reasons for it, ibid. — Under 
whom he was bred, ibid. — Why 
he chose the sect of Academics, 8 
— His opinion upon the several 
arguments concerning the nature 
of the gods 220 

Circe, daughter of the sun 183 

Claudius, his ridicule on the gods 

72 

Cleanthes, his theology, 24 — Cited 

77. 88 

Clouds, goddesses, one of which 
brought forth the centaurs 185 

Cocytus, a river in the infernal* re- 
gions 180 

Ccelius, the historian, his character 

73 



INDEX. 



237 



Ccelum, father of Saturn, 101. 180 
— Father of the second Jupiter, 
186— Of the first Mercury, 187 — 
And of the first Venus 189 

Concord, called a deity, 100. 182— 
And why, 110. 117. 191— Tem- 
ples erected to it 110 

Constellations 123, etc. 

Coronis, mother of the second Mer- 
cury 18/ 

Corybas, father of the second Apollo 

188 

Coryphe, daughter of the ocean, and 
mother of the fourth Minerva, 190 

Cotta, Caius Aurelius, what charac- 
ter Cicero gives of him 1 1 

Cranes, Aristotle's observations upon 
them 135 

Creation, unknown to the ancient 
philosophers 98- 193 

Crocodiles, revered in Egypt, 45. 56 
— How their young are hatched 

139 

Cupid, how many gods of that name, 
and from whom sprung 190 

Cuttle-fish, its manner of defence, 
138 — The use of its blood amongst 
the Romans, ibid. n. 

Dactyli, Idaei, 179 

Darkness, a deity 180 

Death, a deity ibid. 

Deianira 202, n. 

Democritus, his theology, 20. 36. 
€5 — His notion of atoms, 36 — 
Author of Epicurus's Physics, 40 
— And of the doctrine of images 

59 

Destiny, or the power of fate, ac- 
knowledged a deity, 25. 180 — 
Answered 31 

Diagoras, the Atheist, 2. 35. 63. 215 ' 

Diana, by which the Greeks meant 
the moon, 105. 184 — The number 
of Dianas, and from whom they 
sprung 188, 189 

Diodorus, the Stoic 6 

Diogenes of Apollonia, his deity, 20 

Diogenes of Babylonia 25 

Diogenes, the Cynic, his saying of 
Harpalus 2 1 1 



Diona, mother of the third Venus 

189 

Dionysius, the tyrant, his prosperity, 

his impiety, and injustice, 210, 

211 
Dionysius, son of the first Jupiter 

186 
Discord, divinity ascribed to it 19 
Dittany, an antidote against poison 

138 
Divination, how far it proves the ex- 
istence of the gods, 73 — A proof 
of the providence of the gods, 155 
— The inutility of it 165 

Duillius 157 

Egyptians, their idolatry 45 

Elements, all things composed of 
of them, 19 — Called divine by 
Empedocies, ibid. — Are formed 
from each other 25. 112 

Elephant, his prudence 54 

Eleusina, Ceres 64 

Eloquence, an eulogium upon it, 149 
Emolus, son of Atreus 186 

Empedocies, his theology 19 

Ennius, his Annals 118 

Envy, deified 180 

Epicureans, read only the books of 
their own party, 108 — Understand 
not what the Stoics mean by provi- 
dence, 109 — Raillery suits them 
not ibid. 

Epicurus, his book of the Rule and 
Judgment, 27 — His idea of good, 
61 — Had an expedient to avoid 
necessity, 38 — Believes the senses 
are infallible directors, 39 — Boasted 
that he had no instructor, ibid. — 
His physics proved to be taken 
from Democritus, 40 — How he 
used Aristotle and other philoso- 
phers 51 
Erebus, his offspring 180 
Erectheus 184 
Eubulus, son of the first Jupiter, 186 
Euhemerus, his History of the Gods 

64 
Eumenides 181 

Euphrates, what country it fertilizes 

140 



238 



INDEX. 



Euripides, quoted 103 

Faith, a deity, 100 — By whom con- 
secrated ibid. 
Fauns 71.166 
Fear, deified 180 
Fever, a deity, 192 — Where she has 
a temple ibid. 
Figulus 75 
Flaminius, loses a battle through the 
neglect of religion, according to 
Celius 73 
Folly, the greatest misery, 17. 208 
Forms, the five forms of Plato, 13 — 
Whimsies ibid, n. 
Fortune, no title to divinity, and 
why, 191 — An altar consecrated to 
Ill-fortune 192 
Fountains, their title to divinity, 185 
Fraud, a deity 180 
Frogs, sea, how they procure their 
food 137 
Glauce, mother of the third Diana 

189 
Grace, a deity 180 

Gracchus, T. resigns his office, etc. 

75,76 

Gods, the existence of them a general 

opinion, 2 — Doubted and denied 

by some men, 2, 3 — Protagoras 

banished for doubting it, 35— An 

impious custom to argue against 

the gods, 158 — Their existence not 

to be contested, but by the most 

impious, 162 — Epicurus's proof of 

it, 27, 28— Confuted, 34, etc.— 

The Stoics' proof of it, 69, etc. — 

Confuted, etc. 163 

Harpalus, what Diogenes used to say 

of him 211 

Hartswort, a purgative herb 138 

Hasdrubal, 218 — His cruelty to the 

Roman soldiers ibid, n. 

Hecate 181 

Helenus 72 

Heliopolis 187 

Heraclides, his theology 22 

Heraclitus, the difficulty of under- 



standing him 



174 



Hercules, deified, 101. 177. 180— 
How manv there have been of that 



name, and from whom sprung, I78> 

179 
Hermachus, a disciple of Epicurus, 51 
Hesiod, his theogony 23 

Hesperides 180 

Hiero the tyrant 34 

Hippocrates 217 

Hippolytus, how he lost his life, 207, n. 
Hipponax 217, n. 

Homer, 25 — J Oins his chief heroes to 

the gods 157 

Honour, the temple of, 100 — deified 

182. 190 
Hope, deified ibid. 

Hyperion, father of the Sun 187 

Jalysus, grandson of the Sun, 187 
Janus 105 

Jason, of Pherae 202 

Ibis, revered by the Egyptians, 45 — 
A description of it, 55 — How they 
purge themselves 138 

Ichneumons, revered in Egypt, 56 
Idyia, mother of Medea -183 

Indus, a river which sows the ground 

140 
Ino 177. 183 

Isis 182 

Jugurtha 205 

Junius, his punishment for disregard- 
ing the auspices 73 
Juno, 23. 44— Mother of the third 
Vulcan, 187 — Etymology of her 
name 104 
Jupiter, an allegorical name, 23. 25 
— Etymology of it, 102 — Always 
drawn with a beard, 45. 55 — Fa- 
ther of the fourth Hercules, 178, 
]79_Of the first Diana, 188— Of 
the first Bacchus, 189 — Of the 
third Venus, ibid. — Of the third 
and the fourth Minerva, 190 — The 
number of that name, and from 
whom they sprung, 185, 186 — 
The second, father of the four 
muses, 186 — The third, father of 
the sixth Hercules, 179— Of the 
nine muses, 186 — Of the third 
Vulcan, 187— Of the third Mer- 
cury, ibid.— Of the third Apollo, 
188. — Of the second Diana ibid. 



INDEX. 



239 



Jupiter, the planet 96. 133 
Laelius 157. 160. 179 
Lares, household gods, 192 
Latona, sister of Arteria, 179, 181 

Mother of the second Diana ] 89 
Leda, mother of Castor and Pollux 

186 
Lemnos, the isle, its mysteries, 64. — 

Who was master of the forges 

th^re 187 

Leocorion, a ieu. K .~ . __, , . 

x " * n trip 

daughters of Leus 184 

Leontium, the harlot, against whom 

she wrote 51 

Letters, ancient, how many there 

were 117 

Leucippus 36 

Leucothea, (i. e. Ino,) a goddess, 

177. — The story of her ibid, n. 
Liberty, a temple dedicated to it 100 
Lindus, grandson of Sol 187 

Lucina, 106 — Why she presides over 

the delivery of women ibid. 

Lupus, his disbelief of the gods 35 
Lutatius 157 

Lysito, mother of the most ancient 

Hercules 178 

Magi, their prodigies 26 

Maia, mother of the third Mercury 

157 
Mars, (Mavors,) why so called, 105 

— Father of Anteros 189 

Mars, the planet, 96 — The effect of it 

133 
Maso, a temple dedicated by him 185 
Matter, divers opinions concerning it 

218 
Matuta 182 

Medea 183.203 

Melampus, son of A treus 1 86 

Melete, one of the muses ibid. 

Menalius, father of the fourth Vulcan 

187 
Mercury, father of the first and second 

Cupid, 190 — How many of that 

name, and from whom they sprung 

189, 190 
Mercury, the planet 96 

Mesopotamia, what causes its fertility 

140 



Metrodorus 47, §2 

Mind, temples erected to it 110 

Minerva, a book written concerning 

her, 25— The fable of her, ibid, n. 

— The colour of her eyes, 45 — 

Painted with a helmet on her head, 

55 — How many there are of that 

name, and from whom they sprung, 

190 — Which invented war, 186 

Misery, deified \qq 

Mn if m ,° s J ne ' mother of the nine 
Monkeys, like men 1 8(j 

Months, endued with divine efficacy 

23 

Moon, in what time she completes 

her course, 48 — Her bigness 122 

Mopsus 72 

Musasus 25 

Muses, how many, and from whom 

sprung 186 

Naker, a sort of sea shell-fish 135 

Nature, what it is, according to Zeno, 

98 —Divers explanations of it 

111, etc. 
Navius, the augur, his staff 73. 166 
Nausiphanes, follower of Democritus, 
40 —Insulted by Epicurus 51 

Neocles, father of Epicurus 40 

Neptune, used for the sea, 25. 107. 
185. 192. The colour of his eyes, 
45 — From whence his name is de- 
rived 104. 191 
Nile, the river, fertilizes Egypt, 140 
— Said to be father of the second 
Hercules, 178 — Of the second Vul- 
can, 187 — Of the fourth Mercury, 
ibid. — Of the second Bacchus, 189 
— Of the second Minerva 190 
Niobe, 199 — Who was her husband, 
ibid, n. — What number of children 
she had ibid. 
Nisus, father of the fifth Bacchus 

189 

Nodinus, a river, 185 — A temple 

dedicated to it ibid. 

Nomio, the name of the fourth Apollo, 

and why 88 

Numa, established sacrifices, 161 — 

His urns or vessels 179 



•240 

Nymphs, whether they are goddesses 

179 
Nysa, killed by the second Bacchus 

188 

Ocean, deified under the name of 

Neptune, 185— Father of Perseis, 

183— And of Coryphe 190 

Olympias, mother of Alexander 106 

Orbona, a temple erected to her 

192 

-~* .viium tney cele- 
190 



Orpheus 
^ brated them 

Palasmon, by whom divine honours 

were paid to him 177 

Pallas, father of the fifth Minerva 

190 
Pamphilus, disciple of Plato 40 

Pan, offspring of the third Mercury 

187 

Pans, whether they are gods 1 79 

Panetius, his opinion of a general 

conflagration 133 

Panthers, their antidote against poison 

138 
Paris 217 

Parmenides, his theology 19 

Pasiphae, daughter of the sun 182 
Paullus, Emilius 157. 209 

Peduceus 205 

Pelops, father of Atreus 186 

Peripatetics, the difference between 
them and the Stoics 1 1 

Persaeus, his theology 24 

Perseis, daughter of the ocean 183 
Perses, king, notice given of his de- 
feat 71 
Phaedo, disciple of Socrates 54 
Phaedrus, an Epicurean ibid. 
Phaeton 207 
Phalaris 211 
Phoebus 207 
Phceneum, a city where the fifth Mer- 
cury was worshipped 188 
Philo, an Academic 6. 12. 33. 62 
Phthas, a name given to the second 
Vulcan 187, n. 
Pieridaa and Pieriae, names given to 
the muses 186 
Pierus, father of the muses 1 86 



INDEX. 

Pinna, the naker, a kind of sea shell- 
fish 135, 136 
Pisistratus 211 
Piso, the Peripatetic 11 
Planets, deified, 22— Their motion 
worthy admiration 95, 96 
Platalea, the shoveler, a sort of bird 

136 
Plato, his opinion of the formation of 

the world censured, 14— Hi« &«* 
, ^„ -. ^louiiguishes two sorts 

of motions 85 

Pluto, the etymology of his name 104 
Pollux, 70— Why deified 101 

Posidonius, one of Cicero's instruc- 
tors, 6 — Believed Epicurus an 
atheist 67 

Prenotion of the gods, what 26 

Prodicus, what he thought concerning 
the gods 64 

Proserpine, what is meant by it, 104 
— Daughter of the first Jupiter, 185 
— Mother of the first Bacchus, 189 
•—And of the first Diana 188 



Protagoras, his opinion concerning 
the gods, 2. 20 — Banished Athens 
for his disbelief, 35 — Not suspected 
of superstition 63 

Providence, the reasons of the Stoics 
for it, 108, 109 — That it takes care 
of man, 155, 156 — Epicurus's ar- 
gument against it 218 
Pythagoras, his theology, 18 — Not 
communicative to those who were 
not his disciples, 41 — Reasons for 
not believing he sacrificed an ox to 
the muses 215 
Pythagoreans, their blind submission 
to their master 8 
Rainbow 184 
Reason, how pernicious to man 

199, etc. 
Religion, etymology of the word 107 
Rhesus, born of one of the muses 181 
Rivers, deified 185 

Rome, to whom its grandeur was 
owing 161 

Romulus, deified 101. 177 

Roscius, the famous actor, beloved by 
Q. Catullus, 43— Squint-eyed 44 



INDEX. 



241 



Round, whether that is the most per- 
fect figure 15.92,93.132 
Rutilius 209 
Sabazia, for whom those feasts were 
instituted 189 
Sagra, a great battle on that river 

71. 165 

Seasons, deified 23 

Samothrace, mysteries of it 64 

Saturn, chained by Jupiter, 101, 102 

— Etymology of his name, 102 — 

Worshipped throughout the west 

180 
Saturn, planet 96. 133 

Satyrs, whether they are gods 179 
Semele 101 

Serapis 182 

Seriphus, the isle of 48 

Simonides, his answer upon the 
question concerning the nature of 
the gods 34 

Socrates, founder of the Academy, 8 
— Called by Zeno the buffoon of 
Athens, 55 — His death 211 

Sophist, Protagoras the greatest of his 
time 35 

Spino, a river, 185 — A temple dedi- 
cated to it ibid. 
Stars, deified 23 
Stoics, their theology, 30 — Believe 
in destiny, and in divination, 31 — 
More difficult to confute than the 
Epicureans 159 
Strato 23 
Superstition, etymology' of the word 

107 
Swine, what Chrisippus says of them 

154 
Syrians, what god they worshipped 

176 
Tenes, worshipped by the Greeks 

177 
Thales, his theology 17 

Thaumas, father of the rainbow 184 
Thelxiope, one of the muses 186 

Theodorus, the atheist 2. 35. 63 

Theogony of Hesiod, 23 — Of Par- 
menides 19 

Theophrastus, his theology, 22 — At- 
tacked by Leontium 54 



Theseus, asks the death of Hippolytus 

207 

Thoth, the fifth Mercury, so called 

by the Egyptians 1 88 

Thyestes 200 

Thyone, mother of the fifth Bacchus 

189 

Tiber, a temple dedicated to that 

river, and by whom 185 

Tim<Bus, the historian, an observation 

upon the burning of the temple of 

Ephesus 106 

Timocrates, brother of Meti odorus, ill 

used by Epicurus 54 

Tiresias 72 

Tortoises, how their young are hatched 

139 
Trieterides, feasts, from whence so 
called 189 

Triton, how painted 43 

Tritopatreus, son of Jupiter 186 

Tryphonius 183 

Tubulus, his disbelief of the gods 35 
Tyndaridse 71. 164. 177 

Valens, father of the second Mercury 

187 
Varius 210 

Velleius, Caius, one of the persons in 
these discourses 10 

Venus, 100, 106 — How many of that 
name, and from whom sprung 189 
Venus, the planet 96 

Vines, said to shun cabbages 134 
Virtue, a temple erected to it 

110.215 

Upis, father of the third Diana 189 

Vulcan, 45, 46— Son of Nilus, 187 

— Father of the sun, ibid. — Father 

of Apollo, 188 — Husband to the 

third Venus, 189 — How many of 

the name, and whence sprung 1 87 

Vulcanize, who possessed those islands 

187 

Water, the first principle of all things, 

according to Thales 17 

World, for whom made 15, 142. 152 

Waves said to be sacrificed to 185 

Xenocrates, his theology, 22 — 

Whether he was the teacher of 

Epicurus 40 



242 



INDEX. 



Xenophanes, his theology 19 

Xenophon, his theology 21 

Zeno, the Epicurean 33. 51,*52 

Zeno, the Stoic, his theology, 23 — 



His manner of reasoning, 38. 80, 
81 — Thought to be the first who 
taught allegories in fables 101. 

192 



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